~
The blender sat on the counter, innocuous among the other appliances. It was an old blender, its colors faded, with a heavy glass jug. His mom used it for everything. She made him shakes and smoothies with it when he was sick.
His mother poured the milk over the ice cream and red berries and it rose up the sides of the glass, little bubbles racing higher. The window light shone through the jug onto the milk. His mother put the cover on the jug and smiled down at him. Jonah reached up and pushed the little faded white rectangular button. The milkjumped and blurred into motion, whirring and sucking, globules of ice cream spinning by, chased by the streaks of red berries, till it all disappeared into a pink slurry that slid cold down his throat on a summer's day.
~
Jonah heard the teacher's voice wavering up and down and the flash of the
overheads filled his eyes. Each time he saw the white he remembered that blur of red across the sheet.
He sat in the second to front row like he always did. He stared at the desk-back in front of him. Someone had been writing on it. "This sucks," it read. The letters were choppy angular lines scratched on the blue plastic.
"Progress," Professor Styken said. "Progress means growth. Our economy is
based on growth. Have you ever had an economics class where it was even mentioned that there might be limits to growth?" Jonah doodled on his page, trying to fill the white space with black ink. "If we look at nature, what is the first thing you think of that grows without limit?"
"Cancer," Jonah said without raising his head. He kept doodling.
"Excellent example. Cancer multiplies and grows and, in the end, its kills its
host." Jonah kept doodling and tried not to listen. It was just a glimpse of red on white. It could have been yarn from Lucy's knitting, that berry tea his mother liked.
~