Member-only story
An Ode to Diet Coke
Yours is the voice that brings me downstairs in the morning, telling me that it is time to rise and shine and be productive.
And it is for you that I, grumbling, put myself through the shower, into a clean set of clothes, and into my office chair. After, of course, a brief detour through the kitchen.
Even on the worst of winter days, you are there waiting for me: either sitting on the island, a stern gray beacon whose cold colors match my mood; or in the pantry, your light hidden under a Formica bushel. But I will always find you if you are there.
I open you, and you sing a rich harmony of effervescence, greeting me as if by name. As long as I hear your song, I know that everything in the world’s aright. Even in the orange cast of evil days, you inspire in me the purest of hope: as long as you are here, there is no true defeat.
Your song continues in the soft swish of liquid over ice, the gentle crackle as you take on some of the coldness within me. I conduct you to the aluminium chalice that holds you in stasis as we begin our holy rite.
There is the squidge of the lid, then the first sip, when your song truly rises.
Oh, what praises can be written of the taste of your acid crack, modulated so perfectly by sweetness! — A sweetness not of nature born, but, rather, the divination of…
