While the muffins may have been a little over
four days old and left out in a sweaty plastic bag in the waning heat of summer’s
end, he didn’t expect that the muffins would develop the funk. He opened the
bag and took out a muffin with his mouth agape, ready to taste it. When his mouth
closed over and bit down, he at first suspected and then as he chew, he knew,
his muffins had fallen victim to the muffin funk. But he didn’t want to believe
it so he took another bite and found himself engaged in some kind of battle in
his mind nearly willing himself to not notice the funk, as if he could manage
to impose the lie he was telling himself on the remainder of the muffin and the
other muffins in the bag, curing them of the muffin funk and restoring his
world to the balance that had possessed it before this discovery he was
attempting to unknow. He took a third bite and was almost there, almost
believed that there was no funk, that all the muffins were just perfectly fine
but finally, his rational mind powered through the story he was telling himself
bursting open the imaginary damn he had constructed in his mind, protecting
himself from the knowledge of the funk causing his mind to undeniably flood
with the sensory experience of the funk. Almost involuntarily he put the muffin back in the bag and then determinedly he threw the whole bag of muffins in
the garbage, disgusted at the waste and the commitment to a change of plans
that put him face to face with the unknown when he didn’t have time for new
inventions. Rather than think of something new, he simply took a deep breath,
exhaled slowly and considered that having foregone the time to chew the muffin,
he found himself with a little extra time to think that morning.
