A Quick Addiction

I spoon the strawberry Quick powder into the bottom of the glass.
I read the directions on the package to make sure I’ve added enough.
Two tablespoons? I only put in four so I quickly add two more.

It looks so innocent sitting there. A little pile of pink powder in the bottom of an absolutely ordinary glass.
Maybe it’s the color that fools you.
Pink.
Who could be intimidated by anything pink?
Red is an intimidating color.
But pink is red, only, with some white mixed in.
If someone told you that they had a red belt in karate it might make you stop and consider before you messed with them. When informed of their having earned a pink belt in karate though, you would probably feel safe to continue messing with them. Maybe even heap more abuse on them because of their pink belt.
Someone who said, “you make me so mad i’m seeing red” might cause you to cease your obviously unwelcome activity. Whereas someone shouting, “you make me so mad I’m seeing pink” only opens themselves up to the continuance, and probable escalation, of the aforementioned unwelcome activity.
Very deceptive.
Very deceptive indeed.

I pour the ice cold milk over the pink powder and feel the crackle of enormous energy about to be released.
This must be how it feels when the control rods begin their ascent from a freshly refueled nuclear reactor and the first neutrons begin to flow.
Beads of condensation have already begun to flow down the sides of the glass. It’s as if the glass is sweating with anticipation of what’s to come. Several beads drop from the bottom as I raise the glass to my lips.

The chain reaction has begun.

The first ice cold slug swells over my tonsils and makes it’s way down my esophagus. I’m knocked back by the force of it. No. Wait. It was the force of the wave that knocked me back.
Looking around me I see that I am in an ocean of strawberry Quick and the waves are crashing over me sending me tumbling and swirling in every direction.
Breaking the surface, I see a not too distant shore ahead with hazy pink mountains rising above it. I grab a big, fat, plump, juicy strawberry, one of the many adrift on the surface of this ocean, and begin to head for shore. The thought enters my mind that this is Mount Olympus.
No one tells me that.
I just know it.
I’m washed onto the beach and discover that, instead of sand, it is strawberry Quick powder that is being slowly dissolved into the vast ocean of Quick from whence I came.
I roll in it. I nibble away the sticky strawberry crust that has formed on my arm.
My attention is now caught by the crest of the mountain where I see a light, soft, pink waterfall of Quick cascading down into a large golden urn that is barely visible through the mist hanging in the air.
This I’ve got to see.
As I approach, I see an enormous and powerful figure clad in pink robes reclining back on piles of soft pillows. There are beautiful, scantily clad women with long flowing pink hair fanning this figure with giant strawberry leaves.
One particularly beautiful girl is holding a vine of strawberries over the figure’s face, from which he may eat of them simply by opening his mouth and plucking one fat berry after another from the vine.
Again, without being told so, my mind senses that this is the mighty and all powerful Zeus.
He reaches over with one arm and dunks a fine golden chalice into the urn that is being constantly replenished by the waterfall of Quick. I hear a deep bubbling sound that begins slowly and builds to a crescendo when the chalice is full.
Zeus lifts the chalice and begins to drink.
A force hits me from the side and I am knocked to the ground. My senses are overloaded with a rush of strawberry sensation almost too powerful for my mortal flesh and bones to hold in.
For a second I am outside my body, floating above it. I see my own eyes staring out at me through strawberry shaped irises and when they roll back in my head there are no whites to be seen. They are now softly pink.
I recover and begin to rise when I notice Athena notching another one of her strawberry tipped arrows and leveling it at me. My arms open wide and I offer myself up to her arrow of pure strawberry pleasure.
The next one hits me just under my third rib on the right side. The next one enters six inches above my belly button. Now they are coming so quickly and forcefully that I can’t keep track of them.
All I can feel is the intense, numbing yet pleasurable sensations of strawberry Quick, forgoing the circuitous route through the stomach and intestines and being directly injected into my veins.
My heart must be pumping pure Quick now.
My brain is encased in a strawberry Quick bath.
My spinal fluid is strawberry Quick.
When I begin to weep tears of a pleasure so intense that it is more akin to pain, these too are pure strawberry Quick.

In my mind’s eye, I see a huge, pink, spiral galaxy spinning it’s ancient and timeless way across an empty, black universe.
There is only the sound of my beating heart.
Suns ignite, grow old and die. Their blackened embers collide with one another forming crude planetoids which are soon smashed asunder.
Pockets of gas blaze pink as they are heated to incredible temperatures by the enormous gravity at the center of this galaxy, to which they are being drawn.
I too, am being drawn to the center.
Motion is slowing.
I feel heavy.
Even subatomic particles are losing their speed.
“How long have I been here?”
I see a hydrogen atom float slowly by.
“Millions of years?”
Now a neutron comes to a stop right in front of my left eye.
“I have always been here.”

The nectar of the gods has worn off.
The chain reaction has ceased.
I eagerly anticipate my next journey to those misty pink shores.

The next glass of strawberry Quick is just a spoon-full away.

I Like Strawberry Quick!