Poisoned Pavlova

It was like a silent grotesque scene from the Muppet show. Alas, there were no strings, and the characters were human victims of revenge, not cuddly stuffed soft toys. Lifeless; sitting around the small dining table, the food slowly becoming stale in the sweating hot summer night air. The scene and dining contents were perfect for the nightly invading insects, as all the lifeless figures were prostate, inactive and defenseless against the insects attracted by the dishes of food. But it was the fragrant sweet smell of the pavlova crown stuffed with fresh fruit, and oozing with dripping congealed sugar that was the main spectacular attraction for all the winged nightly marauders.

The dead diners: their tongues black and lolling like cactus cladodes on the outside of their gaping open mouths had been poisoned. All the family quartet watched on with staring sightless deceased eyes. The scene was silent, macabre, and sadly gruesome, especially since two of the dead diners were young teenage children. His grandchildren.

The echoes of children’s laughter were now but silent whispers in time. Not long ago at the same dining scene it was full of boisterous banter between the father and his sons, under the caring, watchful eye of the mother. All the watching eyes of the dining audience, with imaginative prospecting eyes salivating as the wife and mother slowly, carefully cut the fragile pavlova crown. The cake knife: like the sword of justice, cut into the delicious, sweetened fruits, which oozed and fell like an avalanche of bouncing fruit boulders, together with the exploding broken white crusty meringue. White puffs of sugar created an airborne fragrance, as the silent watching father and his sons gasped at the sight and breathed in the sweet fragrance. They all impatiently waited for the sweet extravagance to lay on their tongues and subrogate a sweet sensual feeling. The forthcoming event would eventually capture and imprison their taste buds.

All the diners were completely unaware that it was laced with deadly poison.

Revenge is sweet! Just like the sugar-coated pavlova with the full cream dressing highlighted against solidified white meringue background. Literally and metaphorically.

In this case revenge was all consuming. It will eat you up inside like cancer, psychologically wise, pervading all other thoughts. So many days and nights, his thoughts darkened, and brow narrowed, and he vowed he would have his vengeance.

The family feud had reached an irreversible and hardened milestone. Feelings had cracked and shattered like a pavlova crown, but the sweetness of forgiveness, the fruit and sugar of reconciliation was missing. Instead, for years the bile of corrosive irreconcilable differences flowed and continued to flow over the irreparable open wound.

“Don’t come near my family ever again!” His daughter-in-law damned him to separation and isolation, and sadly never to ever to be part of his grandchildren’s young lives.

“I was not present when you hijacked her!” and “This family is cursed!” Were the accusations made by his son, honorably defending his wife. The conflict deepened with time, and the irrevocable accusing language continued. Over a long time, the absence of communication became bitter, unhealthy, an uneasy void, with no more “I love you’s!” The line from the song epitomized his dejected circumstances and kept haunting his failing, deepening dark sadness. His state of mind.

The original source of the conflict disappeared, reprioritized with sensitive vilified feelings that only numerous mock apologies would come close to resolve. Open wounds festering in silence. Demands for apologies from the opinionated and aggrieved victim. The truth became outdated, blurred and obstructed, and imagining times spent together over a tasty meal, with an idle and relaxed conversation had long ago been forgotten. Lost forever, and to become a stretch of a vivid imagination. The Japanese art of cracked or broken pottery being repaired and improved philosophically would never take root in the arid barren minds of their irrevocable differences. The situation was cursed.

He remembered his belated father’s dry wit with his preaching; teach them well and remind them that home is an open door in troubled times, but it doesn’t come free. His father also said, the road to hell is always paved with good intentions. These morals he had witnessed in his own family in the role of a child hadn’t transferred to his family as a role as father, and he wondered why.

But when did it darken, and morph into vengeance, into dark murderous revenge?

Revenge is a double-edged sword.

It starts to germinate with a feeling of injustice, and it festers on the good spirit like cancer. Better to let it dissolve, before planned or unplanned retaliation. Retaliation can easily result in more revenge, as the feelings of betrayal and deceit swell to a point of irretrievability. Where does it end? This revenge.

Revenge is a double-edged sword. It comes at a price never paid.

As he watched from the shadows of the garden into the brightly lit dining scene, the horrific truth of his actions started to hemorrhage into his vengeance full mind. Blinded from forgiveness, he was like Hernan Cortez, the explorer who had burnt his ships to prevent a return to homeland. Instead of ships, he had poisoned his family, but he had burnt his legacy, that of his son, daughter-in-law and his grandchildren. By happenstance he may have inherited a new legacy, that of bad karma which would need to be exorcised in his future lives.

His plan had worked perfectly. It was an evil, ironic show of forgiveness. The pavlova crown was seen as a peace offering, a gift for his son’s birthday. To be consumed in the intimate setting of the family celebration, the only metaphorical fingerprints of deception were those of invading incessant marauding insects. Would it be their last meal, the same last meal as his family, he wondered.

Then the full force of his absent compassion swept away his anger. “What had he done!” He gasped.

The full seasonal cycle of his mood was changing, coming around. The softening of his attitude was now too late, his deed of vengeance, retribution was there for all to see at the look-a-like Muppet show family dinner. The remnants of the sugary white powder and crumbs of the poisoned pavlova crown were still visible on all their pale dead faces. His mood change was untimely, too late for the victims, as the floodgates of regret and remorse poured onto and extinguished the disappearing flames of rage and anger.

Unfortunately, it was all too late to save his family for his murderous revenge!