Gravy: a very short story

Fiction Friday kicks off with this very short story.

gravy |ˈɡrāvē|

noun (plural gravies)

1 a sauce made from cooked meat juices together with stock and other ingredients.

• the fat and juices exuding from meat during cooking.

2 informal, chiefly North American unearned or unexpected money.

ORIGIN

Middle English (denoting a spicy sauce): perhaps from a misreading (as gravé) of Old French grané, probably from grain ‘spice,’ from Latin granum ‘grain.’

Gravy

The taste— brine and comfort. A snap of black pepper on the tip of her tongue, and they she swallows and it’s gone.

That is the dream.

Can you taste in dreams? Smell? Perhaps not. Perhaps it is like dying, too much, too real. This is why she doesn’t walk past diners anymore. The scent of bacon makes her weep, any breakfast meat really, sausage, ham.

It’s all gravy.

The autumn sun is low gold in the sky, he is haloed as he hands her the pepper sauce, smacks his lips like this is the best that’s ever been. Thankful for something so simple: brine and comfort, flour and time.

That is the dream.