So this is a story I wrote for an English class a bit earlier into this year or in late 2010. It is, arguably, amongst my best pieces of work. Ever


Food covered the table's surface, lights reflecting off the creamy, yellow soups and the honey-glazed carrots that lay close to the table's top left corner. The meats dominated the table's entire right side, with dishes of fish, beef and chicken warming the air with their heavy spices.

There sat, in the middle of the table, a cake that dwarfed everything around it. It shone like a sun in the room, lights bouncing off the many pieces of candy that made up a large part of the surface of each of its seven layers. The topmost and smallest layer was made to resemble a miniature dance hall, a dark chocolate roof suspended over white chocolate tiles by spiraling pillars of milk chocolate, around which a plastic couple danced to a Spanish serenade.

She longed to be up there, dancing on the slippery white tiles, soiling her white dress with sticky brown stains and jumping into his arms to whip her long blonde hair into the ebony ceiling above her.

She sighed, her elbows drooping to reveal the pearl necklace that drooped down into her white gown. She dragged her feet along the surface of the wedding hall's tiled floors, moving her shoe’s heel through the grouts that separated the tiles. She laughed to herself thinking about the sheer irony of the fact that what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life turned out to be a failure, a humiliation and a complete and total sham.

How had she, a person described as being 'beautiful', 'kind', 'loving' and 'helpful' could be so betrayed, so hurt by somebody who she trusted so much. She stood up and made her way slowly towards the table. She looked at the food, untouched, unloved. She grabbed a chicken wing and bit into it, sinking her teeth into its warm, spicy flesh, and as she did so, warm memories began to gush into her mind. Vivid images of Christmases by her parents’ fireplace, scholastic and athletic successes, and a very complex love life seemed to form themselves right in front of her, and then came the most vivid image of them all.

Him.

He stood in front of her, in a tuxedo, the color of which complemented his jet-black hair. He smiled at her, his dimples deepening as he grinned, snow-white teeth glimmering in the sunlight that flooded the room through its many rectangular windows. He turned his head towards her, and looked into her eyes before stretching his arm towards her.

She lunged for the outstretched limb practically jumping across five rows of tiling in an attempt to grab onto him with the intention of never letting go. She dropped onto the arm, using her torso to put it in an enclosure of sorts, to make sure it stayed there, but her attempts proved futile, as all her hands could grab was her silky white gown.

She collapsed, her knees buckling under newfound weight in her upper body, making her slide onto the cold, white floor. She began to cry, her eyes squinting as floods of salty water streamed out of them, drawing sludgy mascara onto powdered cheeks and lips coated in thick red lipstick.

She slammed her fists against the cold, white tiles as if she wanted to break them and fall into the earth, where mud, dust and dirt would pile all over her and she would rest of eternity. She was scared, scared of an unknown future, a happy past and a terrible present. She wanted to disappear.

She raised her head, her sights rested on the cake. Ideas began to formulate in her muddled mind, images becoming clearer by the heartbeat. The cake, the most beautiful and perfect thing in the room seemed similar, with dimpled white icing.

She saw him in the cake.

She wrapped her hands around him and squeezed tightly, as if she was scared that he would slip through them and escape. ‘It’s been so long’, she whispered, ‘I thought you’d…you’d forgotten me’.

His silence shocked her.’ Why isn’t he responding?’, she thought to herself. She could not understand the indifference, the sheer lack of care that he responded to her emotion with. She took a step back, and took a good look at him. He looked disheveled, broken and angry, staring at her as if she was a stranger.

Her heart pounded. ‘What’s wrong with him?’ she thought, ‘What could make him act this way?’ ‘I love you!’ she said, and her affection was responded to with complete and total indifference. Rage began to build up inside her. How could somebody that she had loved so much treat her with so much disrespect? Her hands began to form fists and she bore her spice-stained teeth in anger before charging towards him.

She destroyed him, her hands ripping him apart, slicing and dicing him down into small mounds before kicking them off in different directions.

She annihilated him, pounding him with her fists and biting into him in her attempt to make him disappear.

‘How dare you ignore me’, she screamed, ‘How dare you take my love and give me nothing in return!’ ‘You’re a beast, a villain and a thief, and I….I……I don’t love you anymore!’

She moved backwards to look at him. He was silent, split into a million pieces that drifted along in the air or slid cross the vast white tiled surface of the floor. She relished the sight, savoring the feeling of peace, of successful retribution that overcame her as she looked at what she had done.

Then a feeling of regret swept over her. She had killed. She had extinguished the life of somebody she loved, somebody who loved her. She was on the verge of both a mental and physical breakdown. She began to cry, but held back her tears. ‘The worst is over’, she said to herself, ‘All I have to do now is run, run and never come back’.

So she ripped off her white high heels and ran, ran out of the wedding hall and out into the distance, leaving the cake on the ground in the middle of the hall.