Sugar?

On days where the threadbare back tire on my red bike kicked up a thick cover of dust—putting your cigarette plume to shame.

When the garden turned into a mushroom rooftop, which the worms would look up at in awe, and you would draw a drain in the soil to lead the water away from the gravel road.

On the days we turned the snow mound you had spent the entire day, breaking your back to push into the corner of the plot, clearing the driveway—into a tunnel, which would ice over during the blizzardous nights.

When the winter shied away, and spring welcomed me with another year of age, and there would be cake for the both of us, and soft crumbs enough to stick twenty fingers together.

You were there. Outside on your brittle white, plastic lawn chair. The one which could very well snap at any moment. Though such trivialities were not on your mind, as you gave me a half-crooked smile, perfectly framing your mischiefs, and showed me the way to the kitchen. Hoping that no one with better judgment would catch the two of us red-handed.

You would check if the coast was clear, slide a hand inside the cabinet and search my reaction, until I would trip over myself to shove my nose into the gap of the cabinet, which was filled with spices and most importantly….

Out came the black cardboard box, with a neat hinge lid, revealing rows of brown sugar cubes stacked inside.

Perhaps it was the only cardboard-whatever that wasn’t torn, because you loved to give me the gift of opening the hinged top up. 

As I peaked over the edge, my ears filled with the warm rasp of your voice, the one I can still hear when I miss you the most, on the days my bitter- coffee and perhaps self, needs a sweet square cut treat of the past:

“Sugar?”