1bigblackblog

THE COOKIE


an anonymous comment on an anonymous website:

"There is something in the air these days.
It is as if the air hates beauty, creativity, spirit.
all you read these days in the news, in comments online,
and all you hear in friends conversations is hate.
The air is heavy with hate and dullness.

I'm not an artist... I'm a scientist, an engineer.
As I work to achieve what I consider beauty
-- the functional beauty of technology--
I hear the voice of the Zeitgeist of the present age
whispering in my ear "do it!" "do it!"
It is, of course, encouraging me to kill myself...."


i decided to go for a walk as the urge for something sweet
had gotten the better of me. so i decided to go for a walk
to the superior market on vermont avenue and buy
one dollar's worth of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

while returning home, just at the fifty first street bridge,
i noticed a man climbing the fence that separates the street
from the freeway below. when i realized and understood
that he was going to leap down onto the speeding traffic,
i was shocked. what does one do when faced with such a sight?

in the time it takes a molecule to lose an electron
and become positively charged, i thought. and then said
"hello, my friend, have a cookie. they're really very good"
a look of bewilderment appeared on the man's face.
he stared at me and said "what!?"

i walked to within a couple of feet of him. "have a cookie.
theyre really very good and if you are going to call it a day
and jump down onto the freeway then you should enjoy
one last good thing before you die" i smile and held out the bag

in the time it takes a molecule to lose a proton
and become negatively charged, he looked at me
then climbed back down onto the street,
timidly peered in the open bag, reached inside,
and pulled out a cookie.

i put my arm across his shoulders and said
"my friend, if life is so damn unbearable
and so unrelentingly horrible, you deserve
one last good pleasure before you die.
take the cookies. they're really very good"

i gave him the bag and walked away.