BUTTER, BETTER, BEST

The sensation of silky fullness across, under, over, & across her tongue, of microscopic golden globules caressing each tastebud into the purest essence of extasy. She hesitated to swallow, but finally did. Each mouthful was to be a sacrifice for the next. Yet swallowing was, nevertheless, attended with regret. But it had to be, so that another mouthful could be indulged, also to the ultimate reach of oral sensation. Nothing else, no other food, came with the promise of complete intemperate abandon like butter. It was the most perfect manmade form of nourishment. After years of feasting on it in its every form & expression, Bea had come to love butter more than life itself.

If it hadn’t been for her widowhood, she might never have had the opportunity to encounter butter at all. For Beau, her late husband, was a committed vegan & as such was imbued with the conviction that it was tofu that should serve as the staple of just about every meal. In deference to him, Bea had curtailed her appetites, often with a suppressed grumble that only she could hear under the sound of her chewing. You could say, she often speculated, that Beau had given his life in the service of his rigorous diet. For it resulted in his having what could be described as a two-dimensional physique, wiry, “exiguous” (a word she always used in this context) in the extreme, so exiguous that when seen sideways he came close to disappearing. Was it any wonder that a left-turning SUV had run him over while he crossed the street on a green light? Had he consumed some butter he might well have been more visible & thus alive to this very day. Well, ever the realist, Bea thought better of constructing alternative histories. And the facts were that with the customary brioche she was about to have a cup of “bulletproof coffee,” a morning cup into which she added a dollop of butter, sure to be a source of quick energy &, what’s more, calories that would guarantee her visibility in traffic under all weathers.