Strawberry Ice Dream

It was on a particularly tepid afternoon that the ball of strawberry ice cream, once vibrant and full of promise, began to understand the futility of its existence. Perched alone on a dish too vast and white to feel anything but accusatory, it sensed its edges softening, its form degrading—not with drama, but with the quiet horror of inevitability. The spoon had not come to sit by it. No one had chosen to eat it. It was not chocolate,...