PABULUM

PABULUM sana nasib

What is salt without pepper? What is ketchup without fries? Most importantly, what is a jar of basil pesto without pasta? Nothing most would consider a satisfying experience. Few would scoop into me with a silver spoon and lap me up like mother’s milk to the tongue. What’s more, I would never want to be diminished into such a state, by an object so smooth and boring or an organ so sloppy, almost crass in its movements. No, it must be the pasta. e whole wheat variety, elongated noodles or precise penne, but never curly ones. I’d rather die than touch something so inelegant, and I will, eventually, although the death is not in the sense which humans would think it is. My inconsistency is broken down in parts smaller than the tiniest raindrop, and I become one with the human, until I am not.

You may say that I am pretentious in the manner in which I speak, or even hypocritical for my response to being licked up with a tongue considering the manner of my future excretion. To that may I say, there is no dignity in existing, but that which we create

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for ourselves of course. What, you’d rather I live and think as plainly as that carton of evaporated milk on the very top shelf? Tasteless but for a dash of vanilla, churning out sentences full of fat such as “cool” and “hey” and “later”. Later how? Later why? It isn’t as if we’re taken out on a daily basis. We aren’t a jar of almond butter taken out at 9:30 am on weekdays and before noon Saturdays and Sundays. We are reserved for special circumstances, on the whims of others. But I am in a tricky spot.

See, as I had stated earlier and will entail in greater detail presently, I am rarely taken down from my glass shelf full of crowded condiments, many of whom are not up to my standards conversationally speaking. Partially because it isn’t o en that the humans here cook pasta, and they never make margarita pizza although they love to order it (a blessing, I would hate to be entangled in such a greasy mess). I understand this. e worst however, is the days when the stove is brought to a boil, there is a feeling of anticipation for this is when I will be brought out to perfect a meal that would be bland and unrelieved without my tasteful appeal. But then, sometimes I am not chosen even then. Instead, they grab that jar of

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marinara sauce across from me. It smiles an attractive red grin. And I am green with envy. It is unfair that that oaf is taken out so much more than me, when I have the sooner expiration date. When I am coveted, it is merely popular out of convenience. But eventually, I am taken out, and slowly, as time goes by, less and less of me is stuck here with everything I can never be.

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