Light as a Feather

By Christine Vartoughian

Imagine you are a feather.
The thinning air awakens you like a rustle of leaves on the first day of winter. This is a sound
only you can hear and it makes you feel like you’re the only living thing on earth.
It’s just a feeling.
A feeling like your head is floating away from your body, like mascara smudging, coming apart
with the tears of a middle-aged woman named Sally who cries every time she watches a true
crime series about murdered children, the face paint dripping down her cheek. Oh, those poor
babies. They were just children, just kids.
Sally blubbers on and on, even though there is no one around to hear her. Occasionally, as she
lets her fat ass go numb on the couch while listening to the voice messages of kidnappers, she’ll
feel a rumbling in her stomach even though she’s been eating all day. Chocolate and popcorn.
Fried chicken. Zucchini. Shrimp with sweet and sour sauce. Burritos. Cereal. Ice cream. Sally
eats and eats so she doesn’t feel a thing, not a thing, as she watches these parents and
grandparents mourn the loss of their so sweet, so innocent, child. With every tearful testimony,
Sally’s stomach shakes, demanding more and more. The sad, soul crushing situations in these
people’s lives, Sally respects her gut and delivers goat curry and rice noodles, French fries and
pancakes and tiramisu, meatballs and cheese and avocado toast. Sally gives her stomach
everything so she doesn’t have to feel anything. Sally is unafraid of overindulging, of the pork
and chicken dumplings, the frittata with mushrooms, the yogurt topped with fresh berries and
banana. The second and third servings of soup de jour- Italian wedding with added chorizo. Sally

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accepts the comfort of mashed potations and melted cheese and linguine carbonara. She
welcomes the spicy sausages and bean, the mixed nuts, the kettle corn. She is no stranger to
bologna sandwiches or Twinkies or nacho chips that you dip into jars filled with bright yellow
whatever that is.
In her heart, there is a place for everything. For the oysters and the curly fries, the lamb and the
hot dogs, the duck confit and microwaved fish sticks, pizza and lobster. Steak and mac and
cheese. Ramen and souffle. Sally isn’t particular. She likes fancy champagne as much as frat
house beer, Diet Coke as much as Evian, Orangina as much as organic orange juice. She can
taste the good in anything and has a taste for everything.
Escargot.
Rabbit.
Sea cucumber.
She would eat a bear if she were served one.
She would eat a mouse or a lion or a gazelle. She’d eat an owl, a panther, a marmoset –dip them
in squirrel gravy, heron jus, duck fat dip. She’d eat marmalade made from magpies, sweet and
sticky. In her dreams, she is a hunter making her own kebabs. Roasted armadillo. Sous vide
penguins. She rolls different tastes on her tongue- all the spices and peppers and bits of
seasoning. Sweet and savory. She lets the spices tickle her nose, light the tiny hairs on fire. The
star anise pricks her knee pits and the pink salt melts in her mouth like the rough edge of a peach
pit. She closes her eyes and gives in to dill, parsley, and sage. She lights vanilla sticks on fire.
She inhales clove and falls asleep to the feeling of her brain rubbing against velvet.

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All this and more, Sally builds herself with. Her body is filled with an endless consumption of
sauces of all kinds- au poivre, hollandaise, mushroom, garlic, lemon, and soy. Cream, cheese,
tomatoes, yogurt. The best sauces she could drink out of a straw. Curry, truffle, pesto. She
catalogues meals in her mind she’ll want to have again and again. Dumplings, noodles, baked
bread topped with hot butters and melted cheese. Bacon, cut thick and cooked like a steak. Duck
wings so soft, the meat just falls off the bone and slides down her throat. Sally collects these
tastes. She remembers the batter in her grandmother’s mixing bowl, the jellied jiggle of pig ears
in spicy sauce, the plump mounds of ravioli, the crisp crunch of cracklins. The inky thick
goodness of milkshakes, the roll of lollipops around her mouth. How chocolate balls fill her as
they melt. How she tears cartilage off the ends of chicken bones –pop, crunch, snap!
Last night, Sally dreamt she was flying. On the plane, they served three dinners. The first was a
casserole of her favorite things- mushrooms and Brussel sprouts and oil and garlic filled pasta
shells. They glistened in the overhead cabin lighting. The second dinner was a plate of mashed
potatoes covered in dripping wet butter and filled with bits of crispy French fries. And third, the
last meal was the most magical of all because you had to fight the other passengers for it, for that
one single, perfect, chicken leg, the one with gooey dark meat bursting off its body, duck fat
covered and dressed in bacon. A neat little garden gate of quail eggs surrounding it.
Sally would fight off everyone. She would bite into that leg and as the hot air sizzled and fled
from the perfected piece of meat, Sally would leak but a few simple, perfect tears. She’d let them
fall down her cheek and stick out her tongue, hoping to catch them as they fell.
Cornbread.
Sushi rolls.

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Chickpeas.
Whipped cream.
Stew.
Pickles.
Sticky rice.
Polenta.
Pie.
Sourdough.
Chocolate covered strawberries.
Pomegranate.
Steel cut oats.
Linguine. Pappardelle. Spaghetti. Macaroni. Cascatelli. Orecchiette. Tagliatelle. Penne. Lasagna.
Bucatini.
Kimchi. Marinara. Sesame. Bourguignon. Strudel. Goulash. Borscht. Pasta. Croissant.
Dumpling. Schnitzel. Falafel. Naan. Pizza. Fish and chips.
Sally gets dizzy with all the foods inside her, all mixing together. She takes a nap and dreams of
cakes and pastries, fruit tarts and chocolate eclairs, rainbow cookies and scones topped with
clotted cream, bonbons and egg custard caramels. Coconut toffee and crème brûlée. Cadbury and
Ferrero Rocher, Marzipan and Nougat. She dreams of drinks that come with cherries and
awakens to have drinks that come with olives. That night, after too many, she eats a bucket of

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Kentucky Fried Chicken dipped in mashed potatoes and gravy while crying naked in her bathtub.
She rips the skin off a thigh and rolls it in macaroni and cheese with her fingers before popping it
in her mouth. She stirs that macaroni with a chicken bone and licks it clean. She stuffs a biscuit
full of popcorn chicken and eats the whole thing in two bites, chewing, chewing, chewing as she
tilts the container of gravy into her mouth to wash it all down. When a stream falls from the
corner of her mouth, she wipes it up with a potato wedge she then swallows whole.
In her dreams, the soup dumplings she’s about to devour have eyes. She eats them all, each with
one bite. On the floor, in the corner of a blank room, is a paper bag. She looks at the bag and her
stomach rumbles. She’s hungry again already.
Once, when she was only half the size, she used to be what was called a sensible eater. She filled
herself with nuts and fruits and vegetables and healthy snacks, all in reasonable portions. She
exercised. She didn’t know what a glutton was. She was unfamiliar with the sin ‘sloth.’
That was then. Now, is now.
On her table are piles of gnocchi, noodles, knishes. Baked mushrooms and pies. Breaded chops
and creamy casseroles, rice covered in curry, eggs deviled, poached, fried, and scrambled heaped
on top of each other.
Once, she was a feather.
She was thyme, and sage, and salt.
She travelled the world and came back better. I mean, butter.
Now, she is baked, golden brown and beautiful.