The Code

by Sashana Kane Proctor

Hey! I was eating that cheesecake! Give it back! I wasn’t done eating that!

Who do you think you are anyway? Who let you in here? Who gave you the gate code? You can’t get in here without the code! Oh…

Look! What if I promise not to eat cheesecake anymore? Was that it? Cheesecake isn’t good for me. I can stop. Watch me. I’m done with cheesecake. No more cheesecake for me. I don’t even like cheesecake all that much. See? I’m not even trying to eat the cheesecake. I don’t even care about cheesecake.

Vegetables! I really care about vegetables. I’ll eat lots of vegetables. Just give me some and watch me. Do you know how much I love eggplant? Have you looked at how beautiful an eggplant is? It’s royal purple, for gawd’s sake, voluptuous, velvety, vavoomously mulberry! How can a vegetable be that stunning? Or figs…..I know I said

vegetables, but figs are fruit and that’s in the same category. I’ll eat vegetables, fruits—no cheesecake. Can I have a fig? A fig spread open is the grandest canyon of sumptuous sensuality anyone could ever feast their oglers on! As if that weren’t enough, there’s that savagely honeyed nectar that sticks to your crannies and demands someone lick it off! And it’s just a fruit! I can’t give this up! One fig?? Please?

What…….this is it? Let me guess. You don’t need the gate code, do you?

I’m not doin’ this, you old coot! I’m not ready, so back off! Come back in a couple of years. I might be ready by then. Besides, you can’t make me. Oh, now that’s funny! I sound like I’m seven: “You can’t make me!” Ha! It doesn’t matter that I’m ninety-five, wearin’ these crackly ass diapers, crimpin’ down the halls on metal knees and feet that look like Jerusalem artichokes. I’m not done, and don’t you forget it! I’m not done with figs or eggplants or cheesecake! And I’m certainly not done with sore throat sunsets, or emerald fields awash with wind, hawks surfing downdrafts. I haven’t finished that poem yet!

But I’m not in my body. There it is, mug mired in cheesecake. And here I am, lookin’ at the back of my head for the very first time.

Well.

I think I need the new code.

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Sashana Kane Proctor is a writer who lives in the beautiful California Wine Country. This is her first time appearing in HS Radio, but we certainly hope it won’t be her last!