Flash Fiction Friday: Demonade

Garrett Cook here. Christine Morgan has been a supportive matriarch in the Bizarro community. She is ready with cookies, cool gifts, and support whenever we have needed it. She also has an edge that comes out of nowhere and knocks you on your ass. Christine is one of my favorite people in Bizarro and Extreme Horror and has a talent as great as her attitude.

Demonade by Christine Morgan

What?

You’ve heard the saying, seen the memes and cartoons.

Life gives me demons. The hell else am I supposed to do with them?

I don’t know why life gives me demons. Did I do something to deserve it? Am I under some weird curse? Who’s to guess?

Nonetheless, here they are. Here they keep coming. More demons than any one person could ever want, or need. I can barely deal with them fast enough! At this rate, even with the electric juicer, it’s hard to keep up!

And, before that? Trying to do it all by hand? That was a damn nightmare. How our predecessors managed it in the olden days … without modern machinery … like churning butter or making ice cream … such a tedious, time-consuming pain in the ass!

Still, life keeps giving me demons, and I can’t just let them pile up and go bad, and rot into a big sour stinky mess.

It’s best to do it while they’re fresh. Full and firm. Before they develop those soft, mushy spots, or shrivel up and dry out. You get a feel for it, too. I can determine by a squeeze and a sniff when they’re at peak readiness.

My technique is pretty basic. Plunk one down on the cutting board, and slice it in half. Crossways, along the roundest part, what I think of as the midline or the equator. A single cut with a large, sharp, strong knife; no dillydallying about.

Though, seriously, be careful. Mind your fingers. Mind any scratches or papercuts or hangnails, because that stuff smarts like a motherfucker. Oh, and try not to let any squirt up into your eyes. Got myself good once, and holy shit did it sting! I thought my eyeball was going to melt out of my head.

Anyway, yeah, chop them in half, then get to the juicing. When I started, I used one of those plastic kitchen gadgets, you know, looks like a weird kind of butt plug mounted atop a measuring cup. Mash the cut half of the demon down onto the pointy bit, and push and twist until the juice drains down into the cup, then chuck the hollowed-out leftovers into the trash. Or the compost pile, if you’re more eco-minded.

But the twisty way soon caused me some bitchly carpal tunnel, so, to spare my wrists, I switched to a hinged metal press. Like the one you’d use for garlic, only bigger. Physics, right? Archimedes. Lever, fulcrum, move the world. Quicker, more efficient. It sped the process up nicely.

Except, life really is determined to give me a lot of demons. Even with the press, I have more demons than I can handle. Sour little fuckers, cluttering my kitchen, mocking me, laughing at me!

Hence, the electric juicer. And not just your ordinary household kitchen appliance, oh, no. I splurged. I went big. I went fucking industrial. Don’t even have to cut them in half anymore. Just dump a bunch into the hopper on the top, hit the button, and away we go! Grinding and mulching to beat the band, and the juice pours out the spout at the bottom as nice as you please.

However you do it, though, you’ll want to run it through a few strainers, or varying degrees of mesh, to catch any solids. Nobody wants that. Oh, I know, some people say they like pulpy orange juice, but some people also like that boba tea stuff with blobs of frog eggs or whatever bobbing around in it. The thought alone makes me want to puke. Strain that shit, dammit! Who wants to have to chew what they drink?

Now, oranges or apples, okay, you can mostly get away with straight juice. Demons are another matter. Acidic to the point of damn near toxic. You’ll need to dilute and sweeten it, or your cute little neighborhood demonade stand is going to be a dismal failure, even at five cents a cup.

Side-note: you can, of course, use artificial sweetener if you’re calorie conscious, but I personally find the acrid chemical notes leave an unpleasant aftertaste. Test your tap water first, too; metallic elements can also mar the flavor. I usually go with bottled.

Perhaps most importantly, it needs to be served cold. Helps contrast the bitterness, makes it more palatable and refreshing. Nobody wants tepid room-temperature demonade. Let alone warm or hot! Ugh, can you imagine? Like a glass of steaming piss.

So, yeah, keep it chilled, keep it refrigerated. Pour it from a nice crystal pitcher, clinking with ice cubes, beaded with droplets of condensation … maybe add a few demon slices or a dash of demon zest to really make it pop … and there you go! Perfect for picnics or an after-school treat. You’ll be the talk of the town. People might start likening you to Martha Stewart or something.

Whatever else, though, the moral of the story is, you’ve got to make the best of it, whatever ‘it’ is, or that ‘it’ will overwhelm you and wear you down. Accept it. Embrace it. Rise above it. Triumph and prevail.

When life gives you demons, make demonade.

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