Remember Piggy Petit Fours?

This weird little thing came from an image prompt in the “Writing is Hard” channel on the Midnight Burger Discord. Thanks to the podcast creator, Joe Fisher, for the inspiration and encouragement of all the writers and creators who love the work he shares with the world. A transcript follows.

Check it out, Becky. I found this bit of a magazine in the mattress and there’s this photo of a plate of petit fours. Remember those? Little cakes decorated with royal icing like you’d see at tea parties? Not that we went to tea parties, unless it was, like, a bridal shower or whatever. Remember tea, Becky?

Gawd, remember the way the caffeine would give you that slippery sort of sizzle and how your stomach would get blearghy if you drank too much without any food and how it made you have to pee, like, every twenty minutes?

We never had petit fours, though. Sometimes we’d get those mini danishes from the SaveOn, ooh, or these big ol’ soft peanut butter cookies. Man, those were good. Fattening, though. Remember when we used to worry about gaining weight? What a trip.

Becky?

Anyway.

There’s this photo of petit fours and they’re decorated like piglets with pink icing and little sugar snouts. So cute. Weird choice, though, if you ask me. Maybe the hostess was trying to make a joke about fattening up her guests or something. Here’s your cake, little piggies! And everyone would be like, “Oh, they’re too cute to eat!” and “Oh, maybe just one!” And they’d eat like five of them and then feel all squished in their shape-wear squeazypants and do the calculus of petit fours and time on the treadmill at the gym.

Remember when people used to go to the gym and run on treadmills for their health and to burn calories? Remember having calories to just, like, burn? Gawd, Becky, fuckin’ hilarious.

And everyone would say how they had such a nice time drinking tea and eating piggy fours while half their brain was busy being bitchy about the hostess and who the hell has time to make petit fours, right? And she has candles burning in the powder room. Jesus, Becky, remember powder rooms and those little air fresheners you’d plug in so you’d think you were in the Swiss Alps or a pine forest while you did your business?

And, probably, after the tea party, some of the guests would get on WhatsApp and drag the hostess for being prissy and show-offy and they’d start their texts with “Incoming: I’m about to be a bitch” and end them with “I’m sorry. I’m soooo bad,” and everybody would have mutual acknowledgement of how bad they all were. Like, somehow it’s a true sign of friendship that we can show each other the angels of our petty nature—

Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Shit, shit. I didn’t mean to say angels.

Hey, I didn’t mean to say angels, okay? It’s just a saying. It’s just a saying. It’s not the same thing as really saying it!

…

Okay?

…

It’s fine.

Becky?

…

…

Becky, it’s fine. They didn’t come, see? I’m looking out into the ward and I can’t see any. Yeah, I know they sometimes pretend not to be there, but I don’t see any, like, even in the rocks or up in the dark in the ceiling. Yeah, I can see them sometimes, blinking at me like that. I don’t see them blinking, now, though. It’s fine.

Becky?

Becky, remember before, when there were tea parties and little petty piggy petit fours and squeazypants and a sky? Remember that A-N-G-E-L figurine you had on the mantel, the one with the trumpet and the rosy cheeks all puffed up from blowing the trumpet because of the Glad Tidings or whatever? I wonder if it’s still there. Do you think it’s still there, Becky?

Do you think they laughed about it? Not laugh laughed but, you know, did they laugh like they do laughing. I bet they talk shit about us, like, I dunno, some kind of metaphysical WhatsApp where they talk about how stupid we were and how we got it so, so, so wrong and how it’s for the best they came and gave us what we deserved. I bet you anything they do.

Do you think any of it’s still there?

Becky?

Becky?

It’s okay. It’s fine. We don’t have to talk. My knees are sore from kneeling by the wall, anyway.

Hey.

Hey, do you remember rain?