By Ariel Barley

She cannot sit still. She can only take, and she will take happily — every vanilla thing.

Sun-ribbons snuck through her blinds and coaxed her awake that morning. It was a good, peaceful morning. Vanilla from yesterday’s nightly candle still hung in the air, grabbing onto the clothes haphazardly strewn on her floor — grabbing onto the little hairs in her nose, the pebbly taste buds on the tip of her tongue. She liked this time, this early morning, more than anything in the world. It was her marinade.

She spent the first minutes of her day staring at the hunchback shape of that vanilla candle wick, a nasty thing — charred and untrimmed and curled up like a witch-beckoning finger. She wanted it in her mouth, but knew that was silly. But she wanted it. She wondered if some meal from yesterday disagreed with her. Maybe that could justify this craving.

Her mother called her Taker, often. Because would take babydolls and dandelions and pillbugs and run her very own drool on them until they were slick with coats of spit. Spitblankets, she called them adoringly. The blankets meant they were hers. She turned them into gifts. Her mother would hold these gifts and gag these awful gags like a dog dying and say: “Taker, taker, taker.”

She didn’t mind “Taker;” it was a neutral, descriptive thing. And even though she wanted to take the wick-char like powdered pills, she got out of bed.

She had an appointment, a very important one. She couldn’t come to this appointment with char on her lips.

And so, she dressed and washed and brushed until she was appointment-ready, and she kept as far away from the wick as she could, taking deep breaths as she shaped her body into her outside-self. She was good about this type of self regulation. About keeping away from lovely enticing wicks.

Her reflection greeted her in her by-the-door mirror as she was about to step outside. “Your hair!” she said to herself, pleasantly surprised. Her hair was long. Longer than she remembered it, and so shiny and good like bells. Long like when you haven’t noticed your own hair in a while. A pretty hair day, she thought, and it probably had something to do with the vanilla air from the vanilla candle, seeping into her hair follicles and making them pretty. She had vanilla shampoo, too, to match the vanilla candle. She would be needing more vanilla things soon — like vanilla macarons or vanilla lotion for her skin. This would help improve her marinade, she knew.

She thought of her marinade and passively of char as she walked to the rustic little coffee shop a few blocks from her apartment. She ordered a latte. The cashier rang her up slowly, and scrunched his nose all the while. She didn’t care. This was a good, peaceful morning. Normally she would ask him what his problem was, but not today.

He continued to leer as she slid into her favorite seat in the house: perched by a painting of a stained glass house. She licked this painting once, back when she came here for the first time.

The Interviewer walked in next, as if he was waiting for her to get settled. He was an ugly thing, but he smelled wonderful. She pulled her latte in closer. She still hadn’t taken a sip.

“What is that?” she asked. He hadn’t gotten a word out. It was like the question leapt from her chest.

“Pardon?” The Interviewer said. He seemed irked, but she just couldn’t help herself.

“That smell,” She asked again, leaning over. Her long, long hair dipped into her drink. The lovely ends clumped together.

“Vanilla,” said The Interviewer.

“I can practically see it coming off of you.”

And she could, the way the light hit him now as the ribbon-sun shifted. She saw gentle yarn-like vanilla wrapping all around his neck and between his thighs. She wanted that yarn tight around her tongue and slipped all the way into her stomach, a direct line to her gut.

The Interviewer began:

“Where are you going? Why can’t you stay right here?”

She knew she should’ve been nervous. This man could kill her, could take his Interview and wrap it around her throat and tie it so, so tight.

She spat great globs of spit onto the man, determined now.

He did not move, or cry or anything, and the spit began to harden into a softer, more solid substance. She couldn't say how long she was there, spitting. Her mouth went dry occasionally, and she would go up to the cashier and order a small water with ice and drink it up. Each time the cashier handed it to her, his heart seemed to be beating faster than before — annoyingly fast, by the end.

She only stopped when the man was completely covered in this new substance, and looking at his new form made her so warm and happy that she could not contain the giggles that spilled out of her. Her ears became red with sheer joy. The final globs of spit hardened. She knocked on the substance.

“Look!” she told the cashier, still giggling, still knocking. Knock, knock. She held up the man. He was light like feathers now. “Look! Do you want him? He wanted to know where I was going!”

The cashier gagged, a horrible sound. It was the worst sound in the world, and it just kept coming as he cowered behind the register.

She didn’t care, though. Her joy was radiant, all-consuming, deeply personal. This was the best peaceful morning, and nothing could ruin it. If the cashier didn’t want this, someone would. If no one wanted this, she would take it easily.

Heat spread from chapped lips to dry eyeballs to her candle-wicking fingers, she was so happy. Overjoyed, she grabbed the cocoon she made and rubbed it against her face. She heard the spitblanketed man now, crying inside. That sweet, sweet vanilla came off and latched onto her cheek, salted with his crying.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, dabbing her shirt at a new wet spot on the cocoon.

As the cashier gagged, she thought of her marinade — and before she knew it, she was taking, taking, taking that cocoon all the way home and laying over it a blanket she made herself. Making and taking.

With black lips and a present, she was even higher than on top of the world — and it smelled damn good up there. She was taking, taking, taking it all in, all those silly vanilla things. ■