sanemagazine



Glen Bolcain




Not continued from anything, really.

To make a confusing situation even moreso, Life handed me lemons.
Not having ever personally cavorted with Life, nevermind receiving gifts (albeit sour ones) from it, it took me some time before I was able to say anything.
"Erm... thanks."
"Ah, don't mention it." Life settled back on my sofa. Which, I'll note, I hadn't offered, partly because of my surprise at receiving visitors (and gifts), but also because Life didn't look the sort of character I'd like sitting on my couch. Unnestling itself, Life made a gesture in the direction of the lemons, sitting in a wooden crate on the table. "From Spain."
"Ah." This was printed on the side of the crate, I took care to note. "I see."
"They've got the best lemons there."
"Ah, so I've heard." I couldn't actually recall anyone ever telling me (or telling anyone else within earshot) that the best lemons came from Spain, but as I'd never heard they produced poor lemons or that someone else produced better lemons than Spain, I figured that the odds that Spain produced the best lemons were in my favour. "Would you care for a drink?" My hosting intuition sprang back into life, largely uncalled for, as I was still rather uncomfortable with Life sitting on my couch, putting it's rather grubby arm on the armrest and grinning at the crate of lemons on the table and I would have been much happier asking if Life wouldn't mind standing up, possibly taking it's lemons, and taking it's leave, if it didn't mind quite so much.
"I'd love a glass of lemonade, actually."
Ah, right. Should have seen that one coming, really. "You sure you wouldn't like tea or coffee or soda or anything?"
"No, lemonade'll be fine, thanks."
Right.

The thing was, I had no idea how to make lemonade. I knew it involved lemons and probably squeezing them in some fashion or another, but I had vague notions that you needed water, or milk, or something, possibly sugar, and I was sure I'd seen bits of green in some lemonade I'd had before.
All of this I let pass through my mind, and likely across my face, after entering the kitchen, certain that Life could probably read minds or was at least sensitive to facial expressions, and I didn't want to give away my growing discomfort with the whole situation.
I'd always been too afraid to attempt lemonade making, despite it's connotations of innocence and budding capitalism in the hearts and fingers of the young, touching, surely, for just these apprehensions with which I was firmly gripped at the moment. I didn't even like buying powdered lemonade, as it only highlighted my own deficiencies. There may have been a traumatic experience, now that I think of it, as a child, when I tried to make lemonade myself, to sell at such a stand as I was previously invoking with all it's youthful import and I'd just suppressed it so far back I wasn't likely to be able to recall it at the present moment. To this point in my life, suppressed memories and happenstance notwithstanding, I'd managed to avoid the embarrassing situation of having to make a pitcher of lemonade.

"Ehm, you forgot the lemons," came the voice from the sitting room.
"Ah, right, yes, of course, not going to get too far, making lemonade without lemons. Heh heh." I gathered the crate up to my chest and wobbled back on out to the kitchen. Looking back on it, it was a particularly mirthless attempt at a laugh, as I left Life there on the couch.
And I left the crate of lemons on the kitchen counter as I crawled out the window, and ran for all I was worth.

I was on the 'phone to the estate agent before I reached the end of the street, both looking for a new flat and informing them of a new property on the market.

disclaimer:
Yeah, it's beautiful here, too.


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