Delicious is not like abstemious or facetious. Abstemious and facetious have all the vowels contained within them—in the right order. Delicious lacks an a.
I read the slip of paper I'd pulled from the tin. Delicious, it said—and I wondered how delicious actually meant what it did mean. I'm sure it's some lingo thing, but I'm not half clever enough for that. Suddenly, I thought of the word suddenly; suddenly doesn't sound like suddenly, does it? Abruptly had more kick, more of a get up and go. Suddenly is sibilant and slow-moving like a sinuous snake.
Once, when in the West Indies, I tasted a snake. It was a delicacy there, a delightful delicacy. Its dead-eyes stared at me from either side of its head, as it lay coiled on my plate.
"It's delicious, try it and see," said my host. We had been drinking a lot. Well, none of my friends were particularly abstemious, and he was no exception.
I took my knife and cut into the snake's rind, finding it remarkably rubbery whilst with the feel of sawing cardboard. The fleshy innards oozed a green substance.
"It looks scrumptious," I said facetiously.
Suddenly, it leapt off the plate and bit me.
"Delicious," it hissed.
published: Blood Roses 2001
Posted by weirdtongue
at 5:59 AM EDT
