Frozen Destiny

Strawberry. That was its flavor, its "kind", if you will. A scoop of ice cream feels about its ingredients the way most people think about their ethnicity. They are either passionate about whether they have real fruit or chunks of candy or if they're a purebred flavor like chocolate or vanilla--or they hardly notice it at all. This particular scoop was strawberry. With real strawberry chunks folded in. Nothing artificial, no preservatives, only real sugar. The real deal.

Proud though it was of its heritage, that didn't make it feel any better about its current state of being: Doomed. Doomed by a clumsy child, a complete lack of engineering ability in the waitress and the foolishness of the father who had ordered three scoops. It had been exciting at first, being on the top of a tower of delight, but it only lasted until they had all teetered and tottered out the door. Goodbye fellow scoops, goodbye waffle cone, goodbye Destiny. Hello, sidewalk.

It was hot too. The scoop could see itself slowly oozing away, following a crack that meandered towards the gutter. The child hadn't even bothered to mourn its loss, as there were still two more left and she was looking forward to the waffle cone at the bottom more than anything else.

Such a cliche. An ice cream scoop lying on a sidewalk, melting in the hot sun. Frosty the snowman at least had a song sung about him as he dripped away in front of his friends. The scoop's friends didn't even know what had happened. They all sat back in the freezer looking forward to their Day of Destiny. The ultimate event in the life of a scoop of ice cream. To be enjoyed. Savored. Every errant drip quickly lapped up before it was wasted.

The scoop turned its attention away from the crack. There was a large black bird eyeing it from the small fence next to the sidewalk. The bird's head moved in quick jerky movements looking first at the scoop, then up at something else. The scoop had never seen a bird before, but there are some things that need no explanation--even to a melting chunk of frozen dairy product. That bird was hungry.

The scoop turned again at a flapping noise coming from behind. Another bird had landed just out of reach, its sharp toes submerged in the thick stream of cream dribbling down the crack. Almost as soon as he had turned his attention he was brought back to the first which had landed just opposite and taken a small bite. The first bird cocked its head to one side as its beak opened and closed and its small strange tongue went up and down, tasting the strawberries, sugar and cream. Another sharp poke from the other side and the second bird stuck the same thoughtful pose. Like two fine wine tasters, the birds smacked and slurped and tried to identify the flavors swirling in their mouths.

The scoop felt a small tingle of pleasure as it watched this. The birds seemed to actually enjoy what they were experiencing. Not what he had expected or hoped for, but a little pleasure is not so bad when one is melting away in sorrow. Suddenly the birds began feeding in earnest, quickly pecking small bites and then hopping away to swallow in safety. The scoop wasn't really sure what they were wary of until it realized they were evading each other. Sure enough, after several more bites, the first bird moved in front of the second, who chose to take a bite of its tail instead of the scoop. From there it was a full on battle scene as the birds danced around each other and the scoop of strawberry ice cream, jabbing at each other, their feet and soon wings and heads pink with melted milk.

Through the flurry of feathery movement around it, the scoop began to notice the sun had been blotted out and a wall had begun to form around it. A wall of people! The very people who had up till now been avoiding the scoop of strawberry goodness as if it were a scoop of something else entirely were now focusing all of their attention on the scene around it. Fingers were pointed and smiles stretched across faces and a crowd began to form to watch the molten battle scene the scoop had become. This was not what the scoop had imagined at all when it considered its Destiny back in the freezer, but it reveled in the attention and joy focused on it and the birds.

That was when it decided to just go for it. Ice cream scoops rarely get second chances. If you fall off the cone, there's no getting back up. But fate had dealt this scoop a royal flush and he was betting all his chips. If the people wanted to see messy birds, then messy birds where just what they were going to get.

And so the scoop of ice cream, who until now and been doing everything it could to hold itself together in a dignified scoop-like shape threw caution to the wind and began to melt like no ice cream had ever melted before. In no time the two angry birds--who were having a very different kind of day--where covered in sticky gooey cream and could barely get up into the air when they realized their dinner was now gone and they were surrounded by Danger. Little drops of cream and chunks of strawberry flew everywhere as their wings beat their escape. Men laughed and women screamed as the dairy shower struck everyone with sticky deliciousness.

As the crowd broke up, the last of the scoop listened to them laughing about the various places they now needed to wash and the funny looks on their faces in the pictures they had taken at just the right moments. The scoop was very small now, but what it lacked in size and general "scoopiness", it had ten-fold in joy. Surely no ice cream scoop had brought such happiness to so many people.

And with a final sigh and the ice cream equivalent of tears in its eyes, the scoop of all natural strawberry ice cream welcomed the heat of the sidewalk and sank once and for all into the crack.