Coleus forskohlii is sitting at a large rectangular table at the edge of the garden staring at a tall pink cream cake set before her. She is very short and squat and she would call herself a “well rounded” individual than ever admit that she is actually rather overweight. Despite her thick build her features are quite delicate and her choice of clothes are elegant and understated. She wears fragile green tear-shaped earrings upon her ears and her long violet feathery hair is coiled high on her head like the shell of a crustacean. She has a long thin neck that doesn’t really seem to sit well with the rest of her body, but she carries it with grace and poise. I walk over to her and sit at the seat to her right. She is quite distracted by the food in front of her yet she acknowledges my existence with a small wave of her hand. I am somewhat puzzled, as although she seems quite taken with the cake she does not reach to take a slice, in fact I notice that she doesn’t even seem to have a plate.
“It’s a beautiful cake,” I tell her, “Would you care for a slice?” She turns to look at me her movements slow and lethargic, and as she turns I can see that her face is quite flushed and red.
“Do you think I can’t see it?” she begins with a faint smile. “Take a look at me, does it seem to you that I cannot see food when it is before me?” She chuckles.
“Oh I can see it, and believe me I have eaten many a similar tastebud teasing item in the past. Yet it never seems to agree with me no matter how much I admire and want it. It just sits there inside of me, as though I have opened up a door to my stomach and slipped it inside perfectly intact, the icing still sculptured and stiff. In fact I often wonder if anything is going on within me at all. Surely food is energy is it not? Yet I never feel energetic no matter how much I eat. And I never seem to change weight no matter how much I eat”. She sighs and leans back in her chair. Suddenly she laughs.
“I often imagine that there is a whole host of little people living inside of me, all stationed at their different posts around my body. They each have their own unique duties to attend to and they sit there with their cups of tea and their biscuits yet they never seem to know what’s going on in the other departments around them. The office manager sits within my heart with his flashy gadgets and cushy ergonomic chair, yet he doesn’t have the slightest idea about what Phil down in my bowel is up to, or what Angela from circulation’s job is. You know how they always say that communication is the key to a successful business? Well that’s exactly the problem I’m dealing with, there’s a lack of communication within me. They need to have more office meetings or something, because I don’t know if I can go on like this for much longer”. She lapses again into silence and then suddenly sits up and reaches for a knife.
“Damn this I can’t resist any longer. Might as well eat it, won’t make me feel much worse than I do already”
She takes down the cake and goes to cut herself a slice, but her movements are clumsy and rushed and as she brings down the knife she slices deeply into her hand.
“Ow!” she yelps and I jump up quickly to find a bandage and some water. I’m not gone long but when I return she is sitting eating the cake as though nothing has happened at all.
“Your cut!” I say grabbing her hand anxiously. I turn it around hurriedly and finally I find the wound, but it closed and no blood runs out from it.
“What happened?” I ask. She shrugs.
“It’s always the same. Whenever I cut myself the blood seems to clot almost at once. Mustn’t like the idea of being out in the cold I guess” she laughs. I squeeze her hand, and look as her thick gooey blood oozes out for a moment, then stops.
“Angela from circulation has gone home early” she says, “obviously completely incompetent”. She looks up at me her eyes shining and goes back to eating her cake.
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