Page 112 of Aftertaste

“I love you, too,” he replied. “Meet you back here after for beer and burgers and the rest of our lives.”

She nodded, trying to mask the worry on her face as Kostya wiped the puffer’s blood from his hands and lifted the tiny morsel—pinkish grey, soft, like a smear of jelly—to his mouth.

IT WASN’T LOSTon him, the poetry, the symmetry of this last bite.

Everything had begun with a taste of liver. Now it would end with one.

Kostya reached inside himself, to the place in his gut that felt inevitable, an entry point, its emptiness like a door. He reached for his dad. For Frankie. For the other side.

He could almost feel the hands of the Dead reaching out for him in turn.

He placed the pufferfish liver onto his tongue.

Wet, cold, slippery with blood.

Toxic, exotic, a once-in-a-lifetime taste.

He chewed hard, fast, before he lost his nerve.

Fatty, mineral, metallic, cream. Bitter, in the back of his throat.

Tears streamed down his face. Liquid fear.

Like salt, he told Maura, instead of goodbye, and swallowed.

PART FIVESALT & EARTH

A recipe has no soul. You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe.

Thomas Keller

The French Laundry Cookbook

His life doesn’t flash before his eyes;

it skips across his tongue.

The things he savored.

The moments that soured him.

Memories that were sweet.

Others that repulsed him.

The morsels—places, people, passions—

that he wished he could keep tasting.

All the flavors that seasoned every thing,

in every season,

of his brief,

delicious life.

SAVORY

---