Flash Fiction: Artisan Cheese on Chatsworth Road
By: Emma Lou Pike
A rotund and brightly-dressed woman strides gallantly forward, brandishing her cheese like a weapon. She holds it out before her as a priest would, offering holy communion to the unprepared crowd, begging you to say something, to question her confidence. She tears chunks from the gargantuan wedge with her greedy teeth, Gorgonzola dripping from her pointed chin in the blistering heat of midday. She is an alternate-reality Cath Kidston print. A nightmarish fever dream, brought on by reckless overconsumption and a late night of propping up the bar at the dive locale.
As I monitor her tangy descent down the road, she begins to skip in between stores, leaving oleaginous pale-blue tracks in her wake—“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:15–20).
She realises my gaze is following her but doesn’t slow her stride. She knows she has come to save us all from the mundanity of a grey Monday lunch break. A euphoric grin announces itself on her face when she stops to pirouette the pavement, skirts twisting and turning in the wind, spinning cheesy droplets into the faces of nearby children who shriek with delight and a post-lunch second wave of hunger.
Reaching deep inside the pockets of her skirt, she draws forth several miniature Babybel and hands them out to the children. The scarlet waxy skins, torn open by tiny fingers, reveal the delicious surprise, soon devoured by small smiling faces.
By this time, the crowd are in awe of her, the boisterous children gone silent, everyone prickly with anticipation of her next move. They seem so entranced by the display that they fail to see what is happening directly before their eyes. The shoes of the brightly-dressed woman, which had looked like shining rubies in the sun, have begun to droop and change form. The toes melt into the heat of the pavement, though she shows no hint of discomfort. She continues to delight the crowd with curtsies and a perfectly executed arabesque—upon completion of which a cascade of Parmesan sprays onto the heads, faces, and matching tartan overcoats of a passing elderly couple, who now also stop to watch.
She hops delicately into an attitude pose, shooting mascarpone up into the sky from her poised yet soggy foot, and enveloping the windows of the surrounding houses in soft Italian acid-set goo. By now, the crowd are cheering her on. Some have brought instruments from their homes to assist her in a rhythm: a viola, an English horn, a packet of oat biscuits, a bunch of grapes, small paper plates. One neighbour rolls out a piano and astounds with a rendition of Chopin’s Fantasie impromptu which compliments her movements magnificently.
Though the woman before them appears to shrink into herself as she dances, the crowd grows larger and closer with each enchainment, eyes and lips shining hungrily. One man boldly decides to make the move they are all waiting for. Reaching out, water biscuit in hand, he scoops the dancer's fallen ear from the pavement and gingerly takes a bite.
“IT’S CHEESE!” he proclaims, proud to be the first to have such courage. “It’s delicious…It’s…an Occitanie Roquefort, I think!” He licks his lips insatiably.
The danseuse is melting at a rapid pace, becoming something resembling raclette in a dress, as the sun gets hotter and the crowd closes in, brandishing biscuits and caramelised onion chutney. Children and adults alike reduce themselves to animals, on their hands and knees, licking the pavement clean, without a care for the gravel fragments lining their teeth.
The pianist has since broken rank and joined the fray, sucking up every cheesy morsel he can find, while the tiny, frantic ballerina dances on to her own silent orchestra although she is now no more than a wedge.
Finally sated from their feeding frenzy, the crowd all fall back, their bloated stomachs and sticky chins the only hint of carnage. Wiping my own face with my sleeve, I walk back to my table and continue writing, the waitress bringing fresh coffee.
I wonder what we’ll have for dinner?