Crispy Potato Taboo

By R.J. Tennyson

The aroma of the hot chips rises from their torn paper shroud, rousting him. It seems to be tapping him on the shoulder, then with a motion of its vinegary fingers of steam, daring him to sneak one.

The yolk coloured sun shines down warming his plump tired body from head to toe, but he still shivers. In this moment his body isn’t his own. It’s possessed by excitement, anticipation and hunger.

She isn’t going to notice if I take just one, he thinks. It’s not as though she’s going to miss one little chip.

Trying to look inconspicuous, he tilts his head to the left gently so it appears only the soft easterly breeze has moved it.

From the corner of his eye he stalks the chips’ owner. She’s wearing a tank-top the colour of chocolate ice-cream, meeting shorts the colour of vanilla. She’s spent too much time in the sun and her shoulders are burnt a deep shade of strawberry. The Neapolitan woman is half sitting, half lying. She’s reclined, her elbows buried in the washed out banana yellow sand. The white zinc cream on her nose and nutty freckles on her pink cheeks accent her resemblance to a giant banana split.

Her eyes are fixed ahead, watching the water. Flat and still, like an ocean of turquoise glass, gently lapping on the edge of the sand as though breathing in then out.

Her breathing slows, syncing with the lapping of the ocean.

In.

Out.

Closing her stormy ocean grey eyes, her mind empties, exorcising the weight of the world from her shoulders. The rays of the mid-afternoon sun warm her face, highlighting the crooked smile that’s slipped onto it. She is here, and she is nowhere at the same time.

The vinegary fingers of steam beckon to him once more. ‘Come try me,’ they seduce.

He takes one step, two steps, leaving footprints in the sand. The aroma is consuming.

He bends down and takes one. The chicken flavoured saltiness repulses and excites him. Crispy potato taboo.

He shouldn’t, he mustn’t… but he does; he takes another. He savours it, rolling it in his mouth. It’s his turn to close his eyes.

It – the Château Latour. He – the sommelier.

He’s also here, and like her, he’s also nowhere.

He swallows, and it catches; salty thorns of forbidden guilt.

What have I become? He wonders, opening his eyes – the sunlight pulls him back to reality.

She’s still reclined next to him. Her eyes are still shut; she’s still someplace else.

He stares skyward. It’s the hue of a bag of azure blue fairy-floss. A modicum of clouds cling to it, like clumps of sugary snow white marshmallow, scattered by the hand of a carnival loving Mother Nature.

He wanders to the water’s edge, staring down at his reflection. His tiny dotted eyes stare back.

Shaking his feathery white head, he flaps his silver grey wings, and returns to the warm sky.