PIE LOVERS

Pineapple pie. The Quekchi girls, that work the kitchen, made a Pineapple pie. Its sweet and warm aroma envelops the usual humid stench of this wetland, this swamp.

I look up and noticed that other Finca Tatin guests once lost in their novels, are now looking up as well, trying to find out the origin of such a sweet odour. A couple of minutes later, out of the kitchen comes Sandra to the reception area with a large Tupperware filled with cut out pieces of a straight-out-of-the-oven Pineapple pie.

I count 25 timid guests glancing at each other, their New York Times bestsellers no longer holding their interest, trying to solve the million dollar question:

Who, amongst all, will be the first to get up and grab a piece of the cake?

This silent battle of stares was quickly over and done with, when one guest, a little less chicken than the remaining 24, but still uneasy nonetheless, as all eyes were upon him, walks up slowly towards the centre table.

With the container sitting before him, he carefully removes one piece with both hands, brings it to his mouth, bites it softly, closes his eyes and lets out a Mmmmm sound as he savours the sugary treat.

He reopens his eyes, turns around to his girlfriend and with a smile filled with pineapple cubes and crystallised sugar bits, states: “It’s good, it’s really good!”

I thought at this moment everyone would jump up, shout out a big cheer, hug each other and clap his achievement, even demanding an encore but no, no one moved.

Everyone just stood on their tracks, deep in trance, hypnotised even, as the silent spectators to a grand opera drawing to its finale, whilst on the centre stage stood the leading performer, the hero, the least chicken one of the lot, salivating each and every bite of his pineapple pie.

Ciao 4 now

~ Paulo ~