Cream Daydreams

I was strolling merrily around a local bookstore yesterday, looking in vain for a copy of the latest O’Droningham novel, when I came across a section distinctly marked by the word ‘Creme’.

I felt a tingle in my fingers and a warm glow just above, or slightly to the right of my stomach. What kind of a glorious bookstore was this? It had the customary ‘Food and Drink’ section - this I had already passed – but also, it appeared, a seperate area dedicated, not just to cream, but to frenchified cream (which is, as we all know, the crème de la crème of cuisine).

I hoped, of course, that this was not just another non-fiction section; that it was, instead, dedicated to novels, poems, short stories and non-novels of the cream-related sort. If this was the case – and I dearly hoped it would be – it would include such works as Marta Lazcab’s Succulent Bonnets, Tapio Laami’s Maid to Order and the controversial Single Cream by Max Zdowt, recently voted the Second Best Homosexual Text to be Published in Warsaw in the Last Eighteen Years (behind Tomasz Bezki’s A Certain Street). It might even house a rare copy of Ivan Basiuk’s Four Poems on Cows, Only Two on Goats. Who could say? I approached the creamy shelves, barely able to contain my excitement.

The first thing that struck me was the curious darkness of all the spines; most of which were black, set off by bold, glaring titles, in block white or red. There was nothing remotely creamy about the look of these books. Still, appearances can be deceptive. No?

Alas, no. I took a book off the shelf. The Last Gasp was the name of the work; the cover picturing an empty room, across which was cast the shadow of a man in a cowboy hat. A drop of blood, or strawberry jam (perfect with cream) was on the floor. I put the book back, turning to another. The author of this one went by the name of Troy Deathly. The cover was mostly dark green, like the nape of the male mallard. The faint outline of a body could also be glimpsed, lying aghast, as if fainted from a surfeit of cream. Or, to look at it another way, as if murdered by the eponymous Knife of Gazol.

Bit by bit, like drops of milk dripping from Vermeer’s timeless jug, the cruel reality came through to me. This wasn’t a ‘Creme’ section after all. It was but ‘Crime’. And what a crime it was! My hopes had been higher than a reclusive cloud. And now they were dashed like a pail against the pavement; drowned like a vole in a vat of low-fat cream. So tormented was I, I didn’t care to think how such a mistake could be made. I didn’t stop to be amused. No – I did what any disappointed reader would do in this situation. I went straight to the delicatessens and bought myself a tub of pistachio ice-cream.