Gary Panter blog

The Dutiful Cheese

The cheese had come to enjoy lying on the trap; the cool, steel, plate supporting the weight of the cheese; the V-shaped hole that allowed the lower back of the cheese to sink right in; the considerable expanse of blond wood, providing a luxurious and practical base for the apparatus. To the cheese, it was a private space. Quiet time, lying here in the dark, under the sink with the smell of potatoes and onions, detergents, and drain cleaner— an enclosing fragrant atmosphere. A sensual orchestra of smell conducted in the blackness.

It had been so noisy at the cheese factory: everyone bustling in and out; light refracting in sweeping, blinding shards; the thump and whine of compressors and conveyor belts; rattling chaindrives and clanging metal rollers; the splat and fart of extruded cheese food. People talking, talking, talking: so many at once a cheese could not comprehend one individual thread. The slicing, the folding, the shunting—it was all too much.

Much nicer here. An occasional creak in the floor. A metal container of bug spray nearby, resonating, periodically, to the vibrations of a remote motor. If no mouse came forth, it was no sweat off the cheese's back. He had willingly stepped to the fore, as cheeses and unrelated peanut butter spreads had been doing for a century. Funny, cheese and peanut butter had so little in common. Only their application to sandwiches and rat traps partnered them at all. Well, there was suet. The cheese felt no kinship to peanut butter. Two completely different tribes in his view. Which admittedly, was limited to the interior sight of imagination here under the sink, where a scurrying was heard, momentarily.