T H E   C R E A M

by Therese Gehri
c. 1998

He gets up in the morning and goes to the kitchen. He makes himself coffee or tea.

Whichever it is, it has his precious cream in it. The cream is his essence, the absolute, the all powerful. Not too cheap, not too rare, but precious. He buys his cream from down the street at the Middle Eastern corner store. This morning he pours the cream while quietly reciting one of his prayers. He uses see-through glass cups, untainted, to watch the cream fall and swirl with the dark thin coffee, blend light brown clouds into an ocean of thick darkness.

Divine inspiration is falling in thick emulsified drops. Stormy unconscious, obscure waters awakening to the birth of a new world, held by a cup. He puts his left hand faltering grip around the glass handle; he can almost touch the liquid, only a glassy wall between him and the cream; an utterly transubstantiating and exhilarating moment. His knobby fingers, shaky and undisciplined, clutch with fervor and strength as he reaches with quivering moist lips for the first sip.

His look off-kilter and dreamy through murky brown slits, his twitching eyes suddenly flushed with awe, aglow as if he's seen a holy man -- his whole body feels warmer with sweet electric currents and rivers of sweat, like dripping wax riveting the essence of his being.

He says his third prayer in awe: "Most wonderful cream you did it again!" Sighing, sitting back in his chair, realizing (like every morning before).

It's good to believe in something.