Tais Teng - Eating Your Ice-Cream Cones Twice.pdf - Tais Teng - widez2

EATING YOUR ICECREAM CONES TWICE

I must have been just eight years old, when I saw Wilbur eat his icecream twice. He was

licking the last curl of his soft ice, his tongue moving in a methodical way, more as if he was

finishing a boring task than enjoying himself. He gazed at the empty cone. A single line

puckered his brows as if he was trying to do a particular hard sum. Suddenly ice filled the

cone again, rising in a weird snakelike motion.

I stared. It seemed like a neat trick at the time, but the whole world was filled with neat tricks,

most of which I still had to learn. Hitting a ball all the way across the field or climbing to the

top of oak in the backgarden were the important things right then.

Wilbur was not much older than I, but already overtopping most of us by a full head. A

hulking, taciturn boy, his replies most of the time a single grunt, it would have been no use

to ask him how he did it. So I wondered for all of two minutes and forgot the whole thing.

Maybe I even told myself I had imagined the whole transformation.

He was the first to get laid in our class. Wilbur was only thirteen but he looked like

seventeen, perhaps even older.

Wilbur was growing up fast, he made us feel ineffectual and horrible young. Though his

body was skyrocketing, his mind followed at a much slower pace. He never played with us,

but preferred to hang around with the older boys in front of the hamburger stand.

His dog always accompanied him, a sadeyed bulldog, who spend most of his day drooling

and gazing soulfully at birds. I don't think he ever chased a cat or buried a bone in the

garden. It is said that a dog starts to look like his owner, which I think is rubbish, but in their

case it was true.

Both of them had a disconcerting kind of inertia, never hurrying or showing the slightest

trace of enthousiasm. Almost as if they knew that nothing was definitive, that any action or

occurence could be repeated at will.

On a chill november night I saw his dog die.

I was sitting on my bed, propped up by three cushions. The fever buzzed in my ears and

my eyes burned. Beyond the window the street stretched in a pale sheet, almost a void, the

imprint of tires vanishing the moment they were made. Snowflakes drifted from the dark

sky, suddenly materialising in the streetlamps.

The world had become a hushed place no larger than my own street and not altogether

real. I heard Wilbur's footsteps, the patter of his dog's paws the moment they turned the

corner. It was that quiet.

His dog paused in front of the Grahams' house, lifting a hind leg. Steam rose from the base

of lamppost.

Tais Teng - Eating Your Ice-Cream Cones Twice.pdf