Cookie Stories 9
Cookie Story
1
It is Mark who bakes the cookies. He brings them every day. He says that he bakes them himself. I am not sure if I believe him. In any case they are good cookies. I try to give some to Theresa. She refuses to eat them. She says they are fattening. That cannot be true. I eat two or three, every day, and my weight does not change. Mae eats the cookies too. She likes the cookies a lot. They make her happy. I ask her why she does not bake cookies herself, since she likes them so much. She says she does not know how to bake cookies, alas and alack. I like the way she says that: alas and alack. Only Mark knows how to bake cookies. He refuses to reveal his secret recipe. Mae tries to get Mark to tell her his secret recipe. She tempts him with chocolates. He is not interested in her chocolates. The cookies are aways the same, always peanut butter cookies. Mark makes crisscross patterns on the tops. The patterns remind me of the city. Theresa says they remind her of a spider's web. It is obvious she is not from the city. I am not from the city either. I tell Theresa that we have a lot in common. She does not agree. Since I like cookies and she does not, it is impossible for us to have a lot in common.
2
Something has happened. Mark, who without fail has brought peanut butter cookies every day, today has not brought cookies. Instead he has brought gingerbread men. We are all surprised. Theresa and Mae meet to talk about this unexpected development. Mae feels that Mark must have experienced some recent tragedy, for example his wife has left him or his car has broken down. Theresa is of the opinion that Mark had suffered from some childhood trauma, which had been repressed and only now is starting to surface.
It is more likely that Mark is simply tired of peanut butter cookies, or feels that everyone else is tired of peanut butter cookies, or has noticed that not all of the peanut butter cookies get eaten every day. Perhaps he thinks that Theresa, who refuses to eat the peanut butter cookies, will eat a gingerbread man instead. He is mistaken, however: Theresa believes the gingerbread men are just as fattening as the peanut butter cookies. So she refuses to eat them as well. What is more, Mae also cannot eat the gingerbread men, since she is vegetarian. This means that I must eat more gingerbread men, so that Mark does not feel his efforts are unappreciated.
Unlike the peanut butter cookies, the gingerbread men have no patterns whatsoever on them. It is impossible to discern any sort of facial expression in the region of the head. However, with a drastic increase in entropy so imminent, it is difficult to believe the expression would be a happy one.
3
I have placed three gingerbread men on my desk. I name them Mark, Theresa and Mae. It is difficult to tell the boy from the girls. They do not move. Now they are standing, hand touching hand, in a circle. It's like a dance. No matter how they are arranged, Mark is always in the middle of Theresa and Mae. It's obvious that they like him. Theresa tries to hide it by not eating Mark's cookies. Mae is more forthright. Only Theresa's relationship with Mae is ambiguous. Perhaps it is a love triangle. That's what it looks like from directly above.
4
Theresa speaks. She tells a story of her childhood, of growing up in a cabin in the middle of the forest. Far away, at the top of the hill, she could see a huge castle, pure white. She longed to visit that castle, and every day looked at it, dreaming of what could be inside. Finally one day she tried to climb the path to the castle. Midway there, however, she found her way blocked by a huge spider web. She was unable to progress, and waited for the handsome prince who would cut through the web and lead her to the white castle.
No, that's not the kind of the thing Theresa would say. What she really says is that she cut through the spider web herself, made her way to the castle, and found it completely empty, save for a plate of peanut butter cookies on the dining room table. That's more like it. Mark contemplates this story in silence.
5
Now it is Mae's turn. She tells a story of her childhood, of growing up in a tiny apartment in the middle of the city, in the walls of the apartment lived a mouse, Mae was scared of the mouse, she wanted it to come out and play with her, the mouse came out only at night when she was asleep, the mouse never came out of the walls, she tried to tempt it to come out by placing a peach by the hole, the mouse didn't like peaches, Mae tried a plate of extra-crunchy chocolate almond biscotti, the mouse came out to nibble at it, Mae caught the mouse, she cooked and ate it, hahaha, that's a joke of course, the mouse never came out. Mae thinks that if she only had a peanut butter cookie--it would have to be a special recipe--it would be just the right size to stop the hole. Then the mouse would never bother her again.
6
It is Mark's turn to speak. He is silent. Theresa and Mae look at him with anticipation. He is unable to choose. He says nothing.
Theresa approaches Mark. She is angry at his indecision. She slaps him. The force of the blow is too great. Mark's head comes completely off. Theresa's arm is also severed. She stares in disbelief at Mark's missing head, then at her missing arm. She is in shock. Too late she has discovered the perils of office romance.
Mae is unable to bear the scene she has just witnessed. She bends over double in pain. Unfortunately her vegetarian diet has caused her body to become too stiff. She breaks in two at the waist. Soon Mae and Theresa and Mark are reduced to crumbs. This must surely be a metaphor for something.