We All Scream for Ice Cream

Ice cream: rich, creamy, smooth, velvety, luscious, addictive, solver of all of life’s problems, miracle cure for broken hearts and the discomfort of tonsils removed.   Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food, Chocolate Fudge Brownie.  Haagen Daz' Chocolate Chocolate Chip, Cookies & Cream.  Baskin Robbins’ Chocolate Fudge, Gold Medal Ribbon.  Chocolate milkshakes, floats, banana splits, sundaes.   Ice cream.  Pure and unadulterated bliss.

The eternal quandaries: how much ice cream is too much ice cream?  why does it feel like there’s always room for just a little bit more?  are we in control of the ice cream or is the ice cream in control of us?

(September 2008.  Bangalore, India.)

8:00pm:  Chocolate. . .mmmm.  Who knew what joy a simple bowl of ice cream could bring? I am a firm believer in life's simpler pleasures often having the greatest impact on our lives. Enjoying Baskin Robbins chocolate ice cream in the middle of a very far away land probably rates even higher than just a simple pleasure.  Western comforts are few and far between in this strangest of lands, so a little respite and return to normalcy is most welcome.  And the fact this respite is chocolate ice cream makes the moment as near to perfect as it will probably get.  In fact, I sit here fighting the growing urge to eat the rest of the ice cream right here and now just to prolong this state of transcendent nirvana.  But those urges are restrained: force of will has won out over chocolate-y goodness.

8:21pm:  It's the oddest thing. I swear I hear what sounds like the ice cream container bumping against the inside of the freezer door.  It's a soft and slightly squishy sounding bump. . .bump. . .thud, bump. . .bump. . .thud.  It has to be my imagination.   I get up, open the freezer, and check the ice cream carton.  OK, it's right where I put it. . .but was the label facing out when I put it away?  And why is the hair on the back of my neck standing up?  I think this place is finally getting to me.

8:27pm:  There it is again: bump. . .bump. . .thud.  I choose to ignore what I'm sure is my overactive imagination.

8:41pm:  What was that?!  I mute the TV.   Silence.  I think I'll just sit here and listen for a few minutes before un-muting the TV.

8:43pm:  There!  Definitely from somewhere in the kitchen, but not the same noise as before.  This one is like a small melodious whisper, almost chocolate-y in its siren song feel.  I can't make out any words.  This is crazy.   I get up and turn more lights on. I also turn the TV sound up a bit.

8:57pm:  The lights and the television blink off all at once and I am plunged into an eerily silent darkness.  Power failure!  OK, no need to panic.  This actually happens all the time.  The electricity supply in India is incredibly unreliable.  We are lucky to get though any single day without a couple of power outages.  The power usually comes back on in a minute or two.  I can survive a couple of minutes in the dark without freaking out, even if the strange, beckoning whispers emanating from the kitchen seem to have grown a bit louder.  There seems to be a little more structure to them as well, but they still remain unintelligible.

9:02pm:  The power clunks back on: just a quick outage this time. But we must be running on the building's generator power, as the TV remains off and I don't hear the normally-loud refrigerator-freezer running (they both run solely off the main electrical supply around here).  All I can hear are the continued (imagined?) freezer noises, and my heart pounding loudly in my chest.  The freezer noises are still not much more than whispers, but suddenly become something recognizable, something familiar. . .

This is crazy. There has to be a perfectly rational and logical explanation for all of this. This isn't some Stephen King novel. This kind of thing just doesn't happen in real life.

Then the following question hits me like a ton of bricks:  how long before ice cream in a non-functioning freezer starts to melt?  Melted and subsequently re-frozen ice cream never tastes the same.  Never!  I would have to eat It rather than see It go to waste.  Right?  But It won't start to melt for at least 30 minutes, maybe longer.  But I will have to eat It.  The thought lingers in my head.  The thought persists.  The thought can not be willed away.  Something very strange is definitely happening right here, right now.  I suddenly feel like I'm being tested, and not the good kind of test.  This is something different.  Something bad different.

All I know is I cannot give in. I will not give in.  The main power will come back on in a minute or two.  It always does.  Always.  And when it does those deliciously smooth sounds coming from the freezer will stop.  They will.  I know they will.  They have to.  They just have to.

9:05pm:  The refrigerator-freezer and TV clunk loudly back to life. The start that gives me would be comical if the entire room were not filled with an air of anticipation, of expectation, and of dread.  But at least the main power is back on.  It knows that I know It is safe again.  Its cries do cease.  For now at least.  I turn the TV off and then I sit and I wait.

9:21pm:  Another power outage. The call is stronger now. Its call is stronger.  There's an undeniably creamy quality to it which is simultaneously unbearable and irresistible. But bear it and resist it I must.

9:27pm:  Power back on.  Refrigerator-freezer back on.  Nerves basically shot.  This unreliable India electricity supply may prove to be the end of me yet.

11:43pm:  It's been more than two hours since my last entry. There's been four more power outages, each one lasting a little longer than the last.  The most recent outage was 28 minutes.  The whispers have gradually become screams.  I can't take much more of this.  I now know now It is causing these power outages.  I know It is learning to keep the power off for longer and longer periods of time.  I know what It is trying to get me to do.  Still I resist.  But I know the next outage (and there will be a next one, of that I'm certain) will surely bring with it The Time of Melting.  I will have no other choice but to succumb to It's wishes, as my strength is nearly gone, and with it my resolve.  I do not want to do what ultimately I know I will have to do.  I just need the screams to stop.  Please judge me for the person I have been, and not the person I am about to become.

Maybe it would help to try to somehow regain my strength; maybe by eating some sort of creamy, lusciously semi-melted chocolate-y treat. . .