Friday Flash: Butter Frosting

Butter Frosting

It’s four-O-three in the morning and I am awake. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock…

Now it’s four-O-five and a half. I am alone in my wakened state in a large, empty house. It has been an hour since the last time I looked at the clock. Or so it seems.

I notice I am starving.

The Cake

It’s that damned homemade cake with butter frosting.

That confection has been on my mind ever since it came out of the oven, unfrosted. Now that it is decorated in butter and powdered sugar, it's calling me by name.
I shall ignore, I say to myself.

But it cries out even as the clock has halted its ticking. “It’s lonely down here in the kitchen under this stupid glass,” I hear a grumpy little voice rising from downstairs. “I’m afraid of thunder, don’t you know? Nobody loves me.” Is it whining, now?

The Storm

It started raining at precisely at midnight, tonight. I could hear dripping on the sill outside my window as I turned out the light. I was waiting to drift off into an artificially induced sleep as the sound of angry thunder came rumbling down the hill beyond the garden gate. It sloshed through the meadow and stumbled o’er the trees to rest upon the metal rooftop above my bed, where it pattered like a dozen barefoot schoolboys.

Strange thoughts had settled into my head as I lay there in the dark.

Luckily, that’s when slumber came. It swooshed up unexpectedly from out of my brain on the left hand side, slightly above the ear. Here. It slithered down across my shoulders and curled itself back up my neck, at last climbing into my eyes, holding them closed from the inside out, even momentarily against my will.

The dripping got louder for a moment, and then…nothing…

But the artificial sleep inducing pill doesn’t last long when the recipient only takes a quarter and not even a half a pill because of concerns with the possible side effects posted in a patchwork quilt of warnings on the bottle. This time it’s magic had lasted until just after three fifteen a.m., when I finally got up to go to the bathroom.

It was barely raining now, but the leftover drippings from the leaking gutters were much louder than they had been at midnight. They crashed into the tiny river that had now formed on the ground below, sounding more like clanging wind chimes than watery little plops.

The Labels

I got up again and flipped on the naked bathroom light, reaching into the cabinet for an hour's worth more sleep, when a label on the side of the label right beside the prescription label suddenly caught my eye. “Do not take the other half of that half at this time of night, or you'll be hopelessly out of your mind tomorrow. Get up, instead. Do not watch television or read anything disquieting. Don't eat. Do something relaxing until you are drowsy again. What? How would we know what relaxes you; surely something…”

That isn’t word for word what the label on the label said, but that was the jest of it. Yes, jest as in “You’ve got to be kidding”. For why would a bottle of sleep tell you to find something to do instead of taking one of its members?

The Cake Again

Back to the cake that troubles me still, with its winsome face and never ending chatter.

Why did I bake it when I could have bought a single one; a little cupcake from a fancy shop, enveloped in pretty paper, wrapped up in a bakery box with cellophane on top. That would have been so wise.

So chic.

So “2011”.

The Thief

I find myself rising from bed once again. I am painfully weary of listening to that naughty cake’s complaints. I descend the stair and enter the kitchen. Strange. The glass cover sits beside the cake, and the knife is out on the counter. A large slice has been removed. Whoever did it didn’t know how to slice a cake properly. They chopped off a hunk from the side…getting more than their share of frosting, I might add.

Breathing heavily, I consider this. My cake has been disfigured. I feel quite uneasy, for as I told you, I am alone in this house tonight. I hurriedly pull the curtains closed, and check the window locks and the kitchen door. All are secure, as usual. This makes no sense. Unless...

So, I think to myself:

This means someone must have entered through the door, perhaps with a key, and cut a piece of cake, (wrongly sliced and overly large) and left with it in their bare hand. As I brush a bit of hair out of my eyes, my fingers get caught on a sticky knot in my tresses. Then I notice a hint of buttery frosting under my fingernails. There are even cake crumbles upon my cheek.

Strange…and even more interesting…

…the intruder must have climbed the stair, hands full of cake, and sat upon my bed to eat his overly large and improperly sliced piece of cake as his watched me sleeping soundly during the storm. (It had to be a man, for no woman would ever take such a large piece or cut it from the side, even if they love butter frosting more than anything.) I hope I was sleeping with my mouth closed while he sat and ate…I’m glad I was wearing my lacy floral gown…I have a secret admirer…who loves cake every bit as much as I do!

Me and the Cake

I take down my finest dessert plate, pull out my favorite silver plated fork, and proceed to cut a chunk of cake from off the other side. “You know,” the cake says to me, “you should get a bigger slice of me than the one the ‘thief’ took. After all, it’s your house, and I am your beloved cake.” I sit down in the living room, and hear the little voice once more; this time coming from the plate in my sticky little hands. “You do love me,” the cake coos. “Don’t gobble, my love. But savor every delicious bite."
Goodnight.