The Exchange

You are escorted into a tall dining room lined with windows.

The drapes are drawn. A glossy table stretches out to the far end of the room, reflecting the ceiling’s baroque fresco. No one is there except you and the butler.

The butler leads you further into the room, passing by rows of chairs, the tabletop gleaming like the surface of a dark river. Neither of you make a sound as you walk, the soft rug padding your steps. Somewhere a little past the midpoint of the room, the butler stops and pulls out a chair. 

You sit. 

The chair is wooden and carved with ornate detail. You catch your own reflection in the mirror-like tabletop. The seat is cushioned, but in an uncomfortable way. You try a couple different positions, neither makes the situation better.

The butler is already at the far end of the room by the time you realize they have left. 

You wait. You didn’t know what you were expecting, but it wasn’t this. You check your watch.

3:27 A.M. 

Neither morning nor night. Such a strange request, there had to be some rational explanation.

You become aware of your clothing. You don’t know why it took this long to realize how out of place you really are in this lavish mansion. They didn’t say anything about how to dress, so you’re wearing sweatpants and a hoodie. Why did you wear sweatpants and a hoodie? You don’t even wear that in your normal life. It had to be some unconscious reaction to the strange hour of this appointment. There is no appropriate attire for three-thirty in the morning. So, therefore, any attire is right. 

You want coffee. You realize you want food. You are hungry. 

They instructed you to not eat for twelve hours beforehand, so you had gone without supper. Why had they asked you that? This wasn’t a doctor’s appointment. This was a dinner. 

Not a dinner. 

Breakfast. 

Not that either. 

But it was a meal. 

Did it count as a meal, though? 

It was food. 

You were there to eat food, so, technically a meal. Anytime you eat food, it’s technically a meal. That sounded right. 

At the far end of the dining room, the butler reappears. 

Again, they makes no sound, but this time you sense their entrance. You watch them as they walks towards you, a small figure expanding over time. Usually you wouldn’t stare at a person like this. But you do stare. You have a hard time consciously registering the butler as a person, which sounds bad, but they don’t seem to see you as a person either. Mutual absolution by mutual guilt. 

The butler is cradling something in the crook of their arm. At first you think it might be a baby. You squint. Possible but unlikely. Whatever the thing is, it’s swaddled in a cocoon of silky white fabric. 

When the butler finally arrives, they unfurl the fabric with the precision and flourish of someone pulling a tablecloth out from under a banquet table. 

A mint green telephone reveals itself like a miracle or a magic trick.

The butler sets it down to your left and disappears behind you. The curly telephone cord is pulled taut, wiggling rigidly, like a fishing line that suddenly caught. There is a slight rustling and a click. A couple moments of silence. You turn to your left and see the butler walking to the far side of the room once more, without a word. This time you watch their retreat. The time it takes to cross the room makes it appear as though the butler is walking slow, but their movements have a sinuous swiftness that proves otherwise. It’s just a really, really big room.

Just as the butler exits the room, the phone rings.

The sound slices right into your brain and you shake at the impact. A brief interlude of silence and you feel silly for having been startled so dramatically. But no one was there to see it. No one saw it, right? Why does it feel like you’re having to convince yourself of that? And why hasn’t the phone rung again? Did they call and ring once and then just—

The phone rings. This time the aggressive sound is somehow comforting. The promise that something will happen.

You answer the phone, but don’t say anything. 

There is a faint static on the other line, like the receiver is gentling pouring a funnel of fine sand into your ear, something out of a fairy-tale.

“Are you ready?” the voice on the other line says into the finely-grained static.

You’ve become so accustomed to your passive role in this environment—disconcertingly passive, now that you think of it—that you’re not sure what to say to this at first. You look down at your reflection in the table. Two furrowed brows, four blank eyes.

“Yeah,” you say. “Yes,” then add: “Sure.”

Behind you, a loud rattling. You spin around, craning your neck around the high back of the chair. A pair of double door swing wide open and the butler enters, holding a silver platter aloft on their white-gloved hand. The butler approaches swiftly places the platter down in front of you, and retreats back out the double doors. The doors clatter shut with the violence of a shipwreck. 

“Remove the dome,” the voice says, evenly.

You do as you are instructed.

A block of red velvet cake sits on a jade green plate. 

“You have thirty minutes,” the voice says and the line goes dead.

You stare at the cake a moment, then place the phone back in its cradle. You raise your watch to your chest and set a timer. The milliseconds spin from sixty to zero and back to sixty, time chasing it’s tail in a frenzy. 

A plastic fork/spoon/knife combo lays in a plastic package to the right side of the plate. You pick it up and pry the package open with a dull pop. You shimmy out the utensils and napkin and dump the salt and pepper packets in the corner of the platter.

You take in a deep breath through your nostrils and slowly push it out between your lips.

The first bite tastes like any other red velvet cake. The second is the same. But you know that this isn’t any ordinary red velvet cake. You’ve been tasked to decipher what makes it so extra-ordinary. The secret ingredient. Some esoteric element no one else has been able to divine. 

You take another bite, this time trying not to focus on the taste. Instead, you focus your attention on the curtains. They are some indefinably dark, rich color. You’d call it purple, but it’s something far more complex. Something you aren’t familiar enough with in your comparatively proletarian life—like rare dog breeds or fine wine. 

You catch a hint of something on your tastebuds. You close your eyes and try to grasp the taste. Like trying to snag a fish in dark waters.

You take another bite.

You look up at the ceiling. This is the first time you’ve really looked and it gives you vertigo. You close your eyes a moment and reopen them, trying to reorient. The distant expanse is covered in an elaborate, almost bombastic, baroque fresco. All flowing robes and bodies twisting in what is either pain or pleasure. You can’t distinguish where one body begins and the other ends. Some shapes seem more animal than human. Shadows obscure much of the detail. All that really stands out are the eyes, a seemingly infinite constellation of eyes, glistening brightly in the vague bedlam. 

And, just like that, you know the secret ingredient. 

The phone rings.

You pick it up.

“You know the secret ingredient,” the voice says. It isn’t a question.

You nod even though the voice can’t see you. 

The voice can see you, you know that now.

“Your wish has been granted,” the voice continues. “An exchange. A gift for a gift.”

You nod.

“But if you ever reveal it to anyone,” the voice pauses—“Your wish will turn to sand. Is this agreeable?”

You take one last bite of the cake and nod.