When I opened the door to the shop, the bells jangled and I thought I was going to faint. I was accustomed to light-headedness. This was the price of calorie restriction. Sometimes I even enjoyed the experience, because it was proof that what I was doing was working. There could be a physical high too, from the actual sensations, when I let go and agreed to just be there. Other times the stars took a while to clear and I worried that I had been blinded. But this time, my vision cleared quickly, or so I thought, except what I saw when the stars dissipated was something of an inner vision projected outward.
What I saw was an enormous braided challah. The loaf of bread was taller and much wider than me, maybe seven feet tall and four feet wide—a giant. A challah golem. It was a plain challah, no raisins, and its outsides shimmered and shone with honey. The challah did not have a face, but in all other ways I felt it to be smiling at me, each shining cord of the braid like a smile itself. The challah shook and shimmied back and forth as if beckoning me to come dance with it.
I saw myself move toward the challah as if to take up its offer to dance. I wanted to hug the whole bread, to rest my face against the glazed crust, to dive into that eggy, doughy center headfirst. But the challah, magic as it was, had something even better in store for me. The closer I got to its honey-scented body, the more weightless I became. It was as though the challah was some kind of moon that was disrupting my sense of gravity. I saw myself rise up into the air, levitating, rotating sideways, then upside down with my feet over my head, flying above the beautiful top of the bread. I was merely a satellite in the challah’s orbit. I felt at once celestial, mystical, part of a magical painting, like a Chagall, where people soared over one another in glorious dance. Except I wasn’t dancing with a person, but a bread.
I heard Miriam call out, “Hello!”
The bells on the door were still chiming. I realized that my feet were on the ground. In place of the challah stood Miriam. Her face glistened with sweat, prismatic, as though she herself had a honey coating. I felt happy to see her.
“You couldn’t resist my sundaes, could you?” she asked.
“No,” I said, grinning. “I could not resist your sundaes.”
“I’m going to make you an even better one,” she said. “Think you’re ready for the Plotz?”
“Let’s do it,” I said.
I watched her survey her kingdom of yogurt. She licked her lower lip several times, and with each lick, I felt something course through me that was greater than the peace of her presence, greater than the joy of my challah vision. It was desire. I felt a desire to put my mouth on her mouth, to suck on her lower lip, to bring her close to me, her body against my body, to smell her neck and know what she smelled like, to feel her big belly against mine, to sway against her a bit, rubbing up on her.
Oh fuck, I thought. I like this girl.