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Friday comes.

Donuts, chums?

— Godot, upon arrival

Donutland is deserted.

And perhaps if Plato had only stopped playing footsies with the shadows and gotten the hell out of the cave, then maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t be in this predicament.

But, here I am, predicament’d while the smell of Rheology blows by me. Visions of viscocity coefficients and dough elasticity rattle my brain. Yet, that smell. It beckons.

I shoulder my weapon in kind of a macho fashion. I press forward , walking on shattered glass and broken dreams.

A zombie’s cry heralds in the distance. In the Tualitan Valley. Where the Mastodons once frolicked.

Because of the Zombie Crowd, I rarely venture here. It’s a risk.

But, Doughnuts call.

I must answer.

And brother, answering is what I don’t question regardless of the question.

The tattered remnants of Donutland’s store front loom. I take a tentative step inside the store proper.

She’s behind the counter. Her back to me. “Wondered when you’d show up.”

“What? You donut know?”

No response.

Doesn’t matter. I’m now overwhelmed by the smell of yeast proofing and the hot oil and cooked dough and how her gray jumpsuit pulls across her…cruller.

But I digress.

“I’m on the first and last batch,” she says.

I make yummy noises.

“Payment.”

I hand her my last tattered copy of “In Search of Lost Time.”

“Kinda of like us,” I say tepidly.

“Not really.”

And as I watch through the cracked glass window the world falling apart, I’m handed a hot dough ring to rule them all.

I take a bit, my teeth sinking in.

I close my eyes.

I’m in a place approximating heaven. She’s there too. In a bikini.

She motions me out Donutland’s door with an ‘until next week’ look.

“You know,” I say, “I do know a thing or two about Rheology. Fluid viscosity and stable emulsions. Technical things like that.”

“I’ll bet.”

And that was that.

And as she begins pulling the metal grate down the storefront, she pauses.

Looks at me.

“No more Proust?”

I shake my head. “I’ve got Beckett.”

She sighs. “Very well. One more thing.”

“Anything!”

“Stop dreaming of me in a bikini.”

And the Zombie’s cry nears.