In London I found a perfume that smelled like a brownie made entirely out of wet soil. It was inedible, but still very “cake”. “It’s our signature scent”, said the shopkeeper. But I used to make that cake as a child, with my child hands. I looked at the square bottle and it was me. Chocolate-like, but of the earth. Under our balcony I used to make garden stew in a clay pot with mud and pebbles. I stepped frantically on puffball mushrooms under a tree to make the steam. It didn't matter that the mushrooms were not in the pot. My cooking was by association. Only in the mind do the ingredients come together. Sometimes only as words.

 

On the beach I made sand cookies, sea whip spaghetti and sea water cocktails, and on a school day in the forest we learnt to make flutes out of sticks. They made a whistle sound. The stick flute looked like a cigarette, so I lit the tip to smoke it. I imagined a sort of backwards flute playing, sucking music back into my body, but the stick flute was hollow, of course, and not the sound but the flame went through the wooden pipe and into my mouth, lungs, oesophagus. The body, only held together by words. Words, and also fire.