Blueberry Pancakes
A Ghostly Poem for Valentine's Day
“Journeys end in lovers meeting; I have spent an all but sleepless night, I have told lies and made a fool of myself, and the very air tastes like wine. I have been frightened half out of my foolish wits, but I have somehow earned this joy; I have been waiting for it for so long.”
―Shirley Jackson,The Haunting of Hill House
Blueberry Pancakes
By Lo Corliss
She floats up in the corner, rising with the steam, flying on the smoke, and watching the cook as he places blueberries in an ordered grid all along the surface of the pancake batter. It sizzles and steams and bubbles and rises around the blueberries in their regimented grids (he was always like that - not a spontaneous bone in his body) and it dries to a glossy surface before the cook flips the pancake and steps away. She looks on as he checks his watch, and she misses their days together - days of rain and steaming pasta pots and counters full of bread dough fighting to rise in the frigid morning air. She smells birria simmering like Christmas and feels a pang like electricity shoot up and bloom in her chest - black tulips and icicles, lost keys and memories. The cook turns to the window. Hums a sliver of a song. Taps his fingers on the windowsill. He returns to the pan and lifts the corner of his cake with a spatula even though they both know it isn't cooked yet. Once - just once - he looks up to her corner and tilts his head. Perhaps he feels her. Or sees her. Or catches a faint memory. But the electricity drains through her and fills the air with a tang. Alone in the corner, she quietly comes undone.
There’s a scene in Good Will Hunting where they talk about Robin Williams character’s deceased wife and he says he misses the way she farted in bed while she slept (an improvised line), and this felt like that. It’s those quiet moments of mundanity in a relationship where love is firmly seated. I also love how you always include cooking/food as a central motif.