Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 18:01:13 -0400
From: Kafka Dreams 
To: void
Subject: lemonade


Today, the cafeteria had Fresh Samantha Lemondade. 

I really REALLY like their lemonade.  Ingredients: Water, lemon juice,
sugar.  But only enough sugar to keep your lips from puckering through
the back of your head.

I got pulled into some meetings so I didn't drink it until a few hours
later.  It was cool but not cold anymore, like when Mom would make a
pitcher and throw a lot of ice in and the ice would melt away leaving
it at just this temperature on the kitchen counter.

The first sip filled my mouth and there was a flash - across the back
of my eyes, but so vivid it felt like in front of me - of sensations.

It tasted like summer.  Fresh mown grass.  A breeze making the trees
whisper, just cool enough to keep the cicadas from doing that evil
hissing-hum-til-someone-goes-insane-and-kills-the-neighbors noise.
Chlorine in yr sinuses from spending too much time in the pool.  The
flavors of the forest - moss, dead leaves, tree filtered air, dry
dusty gravel along the side of the road that smells DRY and makes yr
bike skid out, wet dirt and earthworms.  The patchy sunburn that comes
of riding in the car with yr arm hanging out.  Sticky tar
criss-crossed with bicycle tracks.  Scraped knees.  Dirt under yr
fingernails from finding cool rocks and sticks and crap around the
neighborhood and stashing them in yr pockets.  Tire swings where you
lean back and enjoy the vertigo.  Hiding in the hedges to leap out and
scare the crap out of friends, family, and pets.  All the shades of
the colors green and brown.

A few sparkling pieces of happiness under glass with a hint of
distortion - a globe that got taken off the shelf and shaken until the
flavors and smells and colors and feelings all fly and fall, winking,
back into the folds of memory.