no point crying over spilt milk

kortverhaal

27/06/2021
🖋: 

You are pouring a glass of milk. It has just come out of the fridge and it has that smoothness it only gets when it is cold. You are pouring into a normal glass. Not too long or too broad, normal, and stable. You might be wondering what kind of milk it is: skim, full, almond? Lactose free in this case, the extra sweetness not overpowering the taste of the milk itself. So you keep pouring at a steady pace. There is nothing that is affecting you and this milk in this very instant. Not the banal weather, not who or how you are. It’s. Just. Milk. 

And you keep pouring. The milk is about halfway now. How much did you want anyway? It does not matter, as long as you get your milk. Everyone has those days, when you come home or wake up and realize what you crave most in that moment is a cold glass of milk, or two, or three. You get the point. It is the milk that matters, the satisfaction that can only be attained by it. There is no liquid that is quite like it, not too thin or thick, not salty nor sweet, just milk. And it is not the same as milk with added flavours, it just is not. Untainted milk is what your body seeks, what it yearns for. Perhaps echoing the earliest stages of life. When milk was all the food you knew. All you could ever want for; milk was your everything. And yes, that was warm milk, but adults are more rational and restrain themselves from the childish indulgence of warm milk before bed. No, cold, cold milk at the counter. Not even with a meal, the need for cold milk is urgent, it calls all your cells to attention. We. Want. Milk. And now. Please. 

Some would have been done pouring by now, you are not. You keep going. Are you lost in thought or are you certain of the amount of milk you seek? Did you calculate when to stop before you grabbed the glass from the second shelf in the kitchen? Or was it when you were deciding which glass to use? You always choose the plain one for milk, so why were you considering changing your habit? It is not a bad one. Merely a secure one. Staying inside of the lines of what you know is easy. Knowing how much milk you will consume exactly and how much milk will be left in the carton for next times. You already know there will be next times. The boxes of milk in your storage testify against you. Their blue cartons mock you when you glance at them and promise yourself today is not that day. Today you will be stronger. Today never comes. 

Why are milk cartons always blue? Is it because of the supposed calmness that blue radiates, the way it is supposed to remind you of a warm summer day at the beach; while ignoring how cramped it is with other tourists and how everything smells like sunscreen gone bad? Or is it because blue is a smooth tasting colour? Try it, imagine the way blue would slide over your tongue and down your throat. Without a hitch. All the way down. Like milk would. It does evoke the sense of staring at the package somewhere in the milk aisle while drinking a nice glass of milk. Somewhere under the buzzing TL-lamps next to the water aisle.  

You might want to stop pouring now. You are getting very close to the rim. No? Okay. The surface tension will keep you in control, albeit for a second. Will you dare to go behind that boundary and will you lap up the milk from the counter? The plan was to drink the cool liquid from the cup, no? Perhaps the vessel or the method itself is not as important as the milk yet a long gulp always seems much more effective in quenching that craving for a while. Small sips, or laps in a near future, do not give the right amount to fully enjoy the characteristics and leave you wanting more, even if none is left.  

But now you’ve done it, you have spilt the milk. Wasteful after all the thought you put into it. Or wasteful in drinking milk at all. Would it be a sin to simply revel in the craving without indulging into the serene? To seek attainable bliss but discipline oneself away from it. To respectfully decline climbing your personal Olympus. Then again, why would you? Milk can be found in any supermarket. It is cheap. There is no great moral question on whether drinking milk will leave a mark on you, taint you. Milk is milk. Always has been, in a way always will be.  

You keep pouring. The puddle on the table is growing in size. It surrounds the entirety of the glass’s foot. It is quite beautiful really. The perfectly smooth white surface, the clean curled edges. A white mirror, one where everything seems a little less dark. Everything muted and washed out in a simple way. It brings a sense of calm to oneself. Exuberance removed. No, thank you. Did you not get the memo? There can be no ripples. Just a growing pool of milk. Ever expanding to the edge of the counter. What would it feel like to swim in it? Like a soft embrace or like a soft chokehold suffocating your entire body? No sight. No light filtering in. Suspended in a pool of white. Drowning in what gave you life. History is doomed to repeat itself after all. 

The milk is running down the counter now. The man-made waterfall creates a puddle on the floor. Kitchens have tile flooring for a reason. You created this reason. This must be a good thing as reason is hard to come by if you do not find a way to create it for yourself even if it is by overpouring a glass and wasting creamy milk. This creaminess you so seek is elevated when turned into butter yet that same quality outbalances the possibility to consume it cold. How are you supposed to spread it upon bread, or worse, toast? Ripped bread resembles a coast eroded by the harshest of stormy waves in October. Toast melts the butter, creates another puddle, one that would make sinking easier done than said. Milk in its purest form will remain superior. 

You have not stopped pouring. I am doubting that you ever will. I am doubting you ever planned on it. What was your plan if not to stop and drink the milk? The longer you keep pouring the warmer it is becoming. You are going against everything in the unwritten rule book of human need for milk. Do you feel you are superior or are you a bystander in your own body, in the moment? Have you been watching yourself this entire time, unable to move a muscle? Screaming on the inside. Or perhaps numb and uncaring as to what happens to you or the glass or the milk inside as well as outside of it?  

The steady cascade is unending. There is more milk on the floor than a bottle is supposed to hold. Is this a bottomless bottle of milk? What if it is the only one in existence and now that you possess it there will be no ending to this moment. Will pouring a single glass of milk become your new eternity? Ending only when all strength leaves your body and your arm no longer has the power to stay suspended.