The previews flicker away at the front as I unwrap the cone. Cellophane crackles like breaking glass. I’m embarrassed – I try to do it quietly but at this point it’s not the main movie. Thoughts swing back to taking out Bronnie all those years ago- what is it now? .. ten years! Down at Southland, buying ice creams buying tickets thinking something was going to happen, but it never did. Dressed in my finest, equipped with one liners but nothing happened always in stasis a hovering spacecraft hoping to land but repelled by a force field to a safe distance, AREA 61 unvisited.

So, now I’m unwrapping this cone, which for all purposes is the same as a Peters Drumstick. The choc-top coating has that rich creamy smell mixed with cocoa, it’s chilled down the core. I imagine that little plug of chocolate right at the end I’ll soon be there , burrowing down through the layers of ice and cream, crunching through the waffle sending drum beats around the cave of my mouth. Explosive snare drum hits inside my head, one of those shooting lightning bolt pains as I have to much cold too quickly and have to back off to a light country beat with my percussion cap teeth. The cone is rough and angular, sort of a sandpaper rough feel to it, put it anywhere near wood and it would disintegrate into sharp shards, like when you knock over a wine glass on the kitchen bench and there’s a hundred pieces, some seen some unseen on the floor, and you do your best with brush and pan and discarded papers, but some of those little splinters are still there, waiting for when you come down, in bare feet and you feel a prick and think it’s an ant or something…..