Chef

I watch the silicone spread through the mold. Seeing the thick fluid ripple out of the container I can't help but remember being small and watching mom cooking. Egg and flour batter, whisked up to a high viscosity every Sunday morning in the plastic mix & pour bowl, descended into a thick liquid onto the grittle and spread out in neat circles. Cake mix would emerge from the electric mixer after the noise was over and fill in the waiting baking pan. I was at her elbow, waiting for tastes, a bowl to lick, and watching the powders and eggs and milky liquids become spongy, consumable solids.

And here I stand in my bathroom. There's no one to make birthday cakes for. No one is there for a Sunday breakfast. It's just me and in my mixer is silicone rubber. After combining silicone with hardener the thick fluid takes on a dried blood color. At the end there is no bowl to lick and the stains up my arms look like those of a demented surgeon. All the finger prints I leave are anonymous glove smears. The garbage of casting paraphernalia looks like something fowl and bloody has just happened. But it's just me, mixing up the solitary recipe for what I make to bring some happiness into the world. Mom cooked eggs and milk and flour and sugar. I cook chemicals into art snacks.