Brian & the cake

Brian Travis stared at the seductive chocolate birthday cake in the fridge as he closed the fridge door. ‘All those layers, all that mahogany-cream, all that…everything.’ Four times he’d gone to the fridge just to look at it.

He returned to the kitchen table and forced his gaze down to the blank Word document before him. ‘It’s the cake’s fault,’ he sulked, ‘how can I ever start my homework knowing that it’s right there?’ Just beyond the snowy door among the rotten vegetables and half eaten tins of soup was that delicious stack of heaven just begging to be devoured. ‘The poor cake.’ Brian plonked his lap top screen down, not only was he hungry, he was now angry too. To picture that poor cake sitting in there cold and lonely broke his ravenous heart. He knew what is was like to be lonely. Nobody had wanted to be his friend at school or at work thanks to the mean lies Nigel Rickers told everyone; ‘Brian Travis doesn’t cut his toe nails, Brian Travis wears pink knickers, Brian Travers is a fat, ugly perv – ‘Stupid, horrible, life-wrecking Nigel!’ “Brian!” His mum called from the living room, “I hope you’ve started that essay!” Of course, Mrs Travis wasn’t calling from their living room but from Mr Bimmel’s. He was their elderly neighbour who had lots of cats and smelled like wee and wet cement. Sometimes Brian would tag along with his mother while she cooked Mr Bimmel his dinner or superglued his dentures back together. Mrs Travis had an enchanting reputation as the local handy-woman. Her handy skills, however, were less conventional than one might find in the Yellow Pages. She wasn’t one for fixing floorboards, replastering damaged walls or fitting a curtain rail. Mrs Travis untied the most enormous, impossible knots out of necklaces, shoe laces, even hose pipes. She removed plasters painlessly, found missing cats, fixed bad haircuts, revived dying plants and concealed spots with make-up. ‘Another reason for me to have the cake,’ Brian told himself, ‘Mr Bimmel can’t enjoy it without any teeth.’ He sighed hopelessly - starving. His NVQ would simply have to wait now that sweet and pressing matters had distracted him. Brian looked the helium balloons, metallic birthday banners and sandwich platters around the kitchen, reminding him that a birthday party was soon starting for Mr Bimmel’s grandson. ‘Bit old for balloons,’ Brian thought. ‘Then again, I’m a bit old to be doing an NVQ.’ He rolled his eyes enviously at the thought of Mr Bimmel’s “birthday boy” grandson enjoying that delicious cake without any appreciation for its flavours, its texture or even the hard work that had gone into baking it. Not to mention the precision with which the delectable icing had been laid. In the living room, Mr Bimmel mumbled something in his old man language which his mother, being quite old herself, seemed to understand. ‘Stupid old man with his stupid grandson.’ Brian rose from the table and approached the fridge again. Quietly as possible, he opened the door. It was instantaneous, the silky, intoxicating scent of milk chocolate and vanilla fudge leapt at him, engulfing his every sense. Brian and the cake looked longingly at one another. Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. An idea that filled him with as much joy and pleasure as the cake would. Brian dipped one emboldened finger in to the sumptuous cream that bordered its surface and brought it to his lips. “Your fate is sealed,” Brian told the cake as the sweetness tickled through his body. “Mum! I’m going back home to work on my assignment, ok?” “Alright, love,” Mrs Travis called in reply as she fixed Mr Bimmel’s tie, ready for his guests due at any moment. “Put the kettle on when you get in, I’m almost done.”

Brian left, closing his neighbour’s front door behind him and hurried across to his house.

An hour later, he watched from his bedroom window as Mr Bimmel’s grandson arrived, hand-in-hand with his beautiful wife and twin sons. Brian sank his teeth in to his stolen, chocolate-smothered dessert. He watched gleefully as the unsuspecting birthday boy entered his grandfather’s house. ‘Thirty years I’ve waited for this,’ Brian scoffed as he lay back on his bed, the precious cake going down a treat. His Over Eaters Anonymous group would be so disapponted. ‘Sod it.’ He took his spoon and scooped away the fondant lettering; ‘Happy Birthday, Nigel.’ Brian gulped down his glorious steal.

“Revenge really is sweet."