Lemon Juice Epiphany

           

I’ve amounted to nothing in my life. I feel nothing. And I do nothing. I’ve been content with this for a while, but lately I feel like I need to get back to being a normal, functioning, teenage, member of society. One Friday night when I was wasting away the night staring at my ceiling, I had a spontaneous spurt of a seemingly spunky thirst for something strange and racy. Without a second thought I slithered out from under my heavy, familiar duvet cover and bolted up the terracotta tile stairs to my kitchen. I flipped the middle light switch and soon the room was flooded with a lively and stirring rush of light. Feeling extra risky, I did a little Irish Jig over to my fridge. Shuffle right, ball change, hop, step, ball change, shuffle left, ball change hop, step, ball change. I swing open the fridge door, wanting to find the most exotic and bizarre thing I could possibly digest. But because it was Friday evening, most of the food bought on the previous Sunday has been eaten by the rest of my family. All I’m left to work with is a tub of cottage cheese, yogurt, radishes, mayonnaise, ketchup, and a few old soft looking apples. Just as I’m about to turn away and go back to my room to cry myself to sleep for the fifth time this week, something catches my eye. A bottle of lemon juice. Without a second thought I grab the green transparent bottle, grab myself one of my parents’ best wine glasses from the top cupboard above the coffee maker, and poor myself a mammoth amount of the lemon juice. I prance around my kitchen and pretend that I’m a seasoned wine connoisseur. I swirl the glass around in my eager hands, something I’ve seen my own father do many times before. I put my nose right in side the glass and deeply inhale. I feel a moment of ecstasy when the sweet and tingly aroma fills my nostrils and I lose myself in my own mind. I’m skipping threw a meadow with tall, fluffy, green grass and it’s raining lemons. The puffy white clouds look like lemons. The lemon trees are everywhere. And the song “Lemon Tree” by The Beatles is playing. My plush lemon-heaven starts melting as soon as I pull my nose out of the inside of the wine glass. The colors start to fade; the trees start to shrivel up into black, wrinkly shrubs, the grass all blows away in the wind, and the fluffy lemon clouds explode into giant grey storm clouds that sprawl themselves across the sky. I bring myself back to reality and I focus in on the milky yellow substance that is in my glass. The texture reminds me of a liquid daffodil, the soft, buttery yellow is like spring time in my wine glass. I admire the substance for a few seconds; I decide that now is the time. As I tilt the glass up to my lips I’m feeling anxious. The second the smooth surface of the glass touches my lips, I know that there is no turning back. The juice plunges down my throat like a gushing waterfall and simultaneously, my faces puckers and cringes so much that the result of it is facial muscle spasms. During the lemon juices journey from my throat to my stomach, my taste buds are still going wild. It feels like MTV Spring Break is having on of their beach parties on my tongue and the out of control spring breakers are at the peak of one of their demented midday bashes. By the time the deceivingly sweet coloured liquid makes its way down my digestive system I’m left with an unpleasant, bitter taste in my mouth. Compared to the initial taste that made me feel wild and young, the aftertaste made my taste buds weep. The displeasing and chalky taste left in my mouth is a temporary reminder that tonight, I did something adventurous. Kind of. Now all I can hear is the subtle hum of the light in my kitchen and my stomach making sharp, high pitch squeaks. I give my belly a good satisfied rub, smack my lips together and strut back down to my bedroom where I will lay for the rest of the night thinking about how that meager glass of lemon juice was just the start of a whole new me.