LXVIII. Cocky Cookie

The Little Martian wakes up famished and furious.

I watch him throw a toast in the oven, boil water like he's prepping for the Hunger Games and almost scald himself as he whips up his morning latte.

“Duck this ducking shit, duck duck duck duck,” he mutters and mumbles under his breath.

His breath jackhammers like an angry butterfly, and I sense a storm brewing.

“Is there something else on your mind?” I ask the ever-avoidant Martian gently.

“Yes!" He bursts out, upfront for once. “I can’t ducking bear it anymore. I thought I could be all independent and mysterious and broody, but I have so much work, and I am so tired, and I don’t have it in me to be cool anymore.”

“Who are you trying to be cool for anyway?” I ask him over my own foamy cappuccino.

He eyes my milky coffee with distast. “You’re lactose intolerant... And ’m relationship intolerant!"

“Woah, woah, woah, step back there. Relationship? What relationship?”

The Little Martian scrunches up his nose , “It doesn’t matter. It wasnt even the r-word it was what you humans call a situanspaceship and,It’s over now anyway.”

"A situationship?"

"Ya. A situationspaceship. The worst kind of spaceship out there. "

“Care to elaborate?"

The Little Martian jerks towards me as if he is existing on two planes as we speak—one is the physical realm where I sit with my deadly dairy cappuccino, and the other, a metaphysical half-here, half-nowhere realm where someone, somewhere is treating him like shit.

The Martian looks at me with a spaced-out expression, it comes rather naturally to him.

“It’s like walking into a bakery. You’re off sugar, but you walk in either way. Just for a quick look-see. There are decadent desserts everywhere! Triple-layered marzipan cakes, delicate swirls of ganache call your name! Italian pastries, multi- coloured, multilayered cheesecakes tempt you...."

The Martian’s eyes have a manic gleam now. I find myself leaning closer as he paints a vivid world of pointless confectionery before me.

“But..." I say, because I sense a butt is near.

“But I chose a cookie. The world was open before me, and all I chose was a simple chocolate chip cookie.”

“That’s kind of cute, no?” I say, trying to keep up with his elaborate metaphors.

“You’d think!” he bursts out. “You’d think! That nothing could go wrong with a cookie. But oh boy, oh boy, do these cookies have a whole other side to them.”

I snort, then hasten to cover it up.

The Martian shoots me a look, and I regain my solemn cookie composure.

“So it’s an evil cookie then?” I ask him.

“Not evil. Salty,” he grounds out, with an air of finality.

“A salty cookie?”

“Yes.”

There is a pause. A strange, empty pause where only one of us seems to know what’s going on. The Little Martian takes a deep breath and picks up his soliloquy once again.

“You bite into it, sure that you’ve made the right choice, the safe choice, the choice that can’t hurt you again. And then you realize that it’s salt and not sugar, the dough is too chewy, and the chocolate has expired.”

The Little Martian looks up at me now, eyes wide and shiny and unguarded. Naked vulnerability fights to hide itself in his ivy orbs.

“I think I might give up sugar again.”

"I think that might be for the best."