« it’s just a meringue » I say under my breath, bracing myself for another set of eggs to go wrong.
Charlie is watching the football in the living room. He’s blissfully unaware I’ve been falling apart. The easy and quick recipe my mother-in-law has served every Sunday since 1976. Did you know there are different meringue type? The French, the Italian, the Swiss… all with the same easy first step of neatly separating the whites from the yolks. My eggs stubbornly refuse to do so. the slippery yellow buggers keep escaping into the bowl.
« if SHE can do it, so can I»
my friend Mairead gave me a tip. « Don’t try to be so bold and get all of it fast. let it slip by itself and stops when it’s done ». The trick is to break the egg nicely into two halves and slowly pour the white back and forth between the two bits of the shell, letting the white falls by itself into the bowl in the process. when the half where the yolk still lays, unbroken, has little white left, stops quietly. Don’t try to be eager and get it all out. You’d break the yolk.
« It’s working! I can’t believe it!» I’m shrieking like a little girl as I watch the transparent gluey texture glinting from the bowl. That stirs up a snoozy «you all right Love ? » from the living room.
I do one, two, three… I can’t stop…The whites all escape in the bowl with the yolks unscathed. I’m a genius! I’m so good! I can see so many bakes happening in the future. I’ll be the envy of the family, the centre of love and attention… oh I can’t wait to show them all what I can do!
It all happened suddenly. My life as I knew it halted as the hand that fed me laid cold on the floor. I knew the form standing above it. I’ve seen it before. I knew its scent too. I didn’t know what to do then. I knew where it live. I dashed through the streets under the pouring rain, watched it as it stood above a sink. I waited. it sank in a chair, droplets of water running from its eyes. I was hungry and thirsty. I crouched under the raised window, slipped into the room. It’d fell asleep by now. It took away my feeder, it might as well provide for me from now on. I sank my teeth in its neck, labouring with my claws against the soft tissue. So soft, so easy to tear. I felt the warmth running down my fur and my head, my jaws working at the meat. Things felt good again. I felt safe again, I had food and heat. Perfection.
