How Milk Got Some Honey
There was a cookie party in the mental hospital.
The MHW (mental health worker) handing out the peanut butter cookies held the treat just out of the patient’s reach.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “The Devil doesn’t eat peanut butter.”
The patient waiting for his cookie was in the habit of calling himself the Devil. He would chant, “I’m the Devil, I’m the Devil, I’m the Devil, I’m the Devil.”
“I’m not the Devil,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Can I have my cookie?”
Laughing, the MHW gave the patient the cookie. A second MHW handed him a Styrofoam cup of milk.
The patient sat down at a table in the dayroom.
“I am the Devil,” he told the milk.
The milk took this news hard. She did not want the Devil to imbibe her. From what she understood, Devils were evil. She, on the other hand, was good, pure and milky white. She feared to venture into the unknown. Who knew what was happening inside the Devil? And besides that the peanut butter cookie wouldn’t stop laughing.
“Ha ha hee hee ha ha hee hee.” The cookie’s laughter didn’t really sound like that, but it followed the same general pattern. It was fake. Forced. Phony. There was absolutely nothing funny about being chewed up and swallowed by the Devil.
“Shut up,” she shouted, but the cookie didn’t hear her. He just kept on laughing.
The milk wished she could return to her pasteurizing vat. It was perfect there. Warm and frothy. It was like being inside the cow, but better. There was less gossiping inside the vat. None of the milk played childish pranks. It was like the milk was getting more mature.
There was no hope. The Devil was going to drink her. There was no stopping that from happening. He picked up the cookie and took a bite. The cookie screamed like he was in terrible pain, but then he started laughing as if he had gotten a rise out of the milk. He hadn’t. She knew pain wasn’t something they had access to. Being milk was so unfair.
“Fine,” the milk said to herself. “Let the Devil drink me. I’ll lodge myself in his arteries like cholesterol. I’ll never let him forget what he did to me.”
The milk flowed between the Devil’s lips. deluging his quivering tongue in her silky nakedness. She flowed down his esophagus. And splashed down in his stomach sack.
“Ew,” the milk said. “It’s kinda cool down here.”
The Devil’s gut was a pit of highly controlled rot, steamy as a bathhouse. It was New York city c.1978. Everything was coming together. Coming together. The sleazy enzymes began doing a number on the milk’s sugar. Yeah baby, that’s the way. Break me down, honey.
A few hours later, the milk met a psychotropic chemical in the Devil’s blood stream. They were both heading for the kidneys, and she highly suspected she was in love with this molecularly complex bad boy. His name was Ativan.
“What?” she said.
“Yeah, I’m telling you, he’s not the Devil.” Ativan said. “He’s just fucking crazy.”
