You gotta go your own whey. You like puns. And you're ready to see [[the world]]!You tend to prefer the cold, after all that's where you spent most of your life. This is new...different... [[Observe your surroundings]]You are in a slightly warmer temperature, having fallen into this silver container from your usual glass jar. It is quiet, you hear the human shuffling around the room, the soft notes from what seems to be folksy indie pop. Paper Kites perhaps? You can't see above the silver walls of the large pot, but the reflection shows a spinning fan. You feel yourself slosh around a bit. //Strange//, you think. [[The human is approaching.]]You are excited, after all your relationship with humans has always been good. They helped you enter this world. They took care of you, making sure you stayed fresh and happy. Every few days they checked on you, making sure you were still healthy but gave you the freedom to explore the shelf in the fridge where you lived. You had heard stories from [[grapes]] there. When you met humans, you went on adventures, you grew, you saw the world. [[Wait and see what they'll do first]] [[Slosh around to get the human's attention]] Friendly, but a little pretentious. They came all the way from California (//Napa Valley//) and they really had seen the world. You were born in a farm not too far from here. They had travelled across thecountry. They had seen wine critics, intellectuals of all sorts (//[[I heard it through the grapevine]] that in Silicon Valley they've built machines that fix humans and make billionaires//) and most importantly they told stories about mountains. You slosh around a bit, after practice from the fridge you've figured out how to move around on your own. The human pauses. You keep sloshing "What the hell", you hear the human mutter. This is where the [[fodue]]s begin [[The human walks over]]Look at you being patient. What with your big dreams of seeing the country, travelling farm to farm. You know you've spent far too long waiting for your life to begin, the human has it's plan. It's stuffy in here. The wait is [[grating]] on your nerves. Trembling with anticipation, one should admire your self control. You are being patient. You hear tinkering around the room. [[The human approaches.]]You slosh around some more. Because why not, you don't know who this human is. And this silver pot thing is becoming more suspicious as time goes on. Sure they stored you in some "fridge" construct for a while. Big deal. Who knows what they're planning for you. Might as well force them to show their hand. The human stares. It pulls out a wooden spoon and makes and X into your liquidy form. This briefly stops your sloshy rebellion. You know what. Maybe it would be wiser to let the human do it's thing. [[Wait and see what they'll do first]] Or... [[fuck it]]Their eyes reflect, distored, on the silver walls. You see a rather pale hand reach over the edge of the pot and they play a silver spike into the pot.. into you?? Excuse you human what are you doing It doesn't hurt, you just can feel it move you in a circle around the pot. Curious. [[You hear a click]]And a little //bwoof// Hmm something underneath you is a little warm. It's mildly uncomfortable. //You've [[goat to be kidding me]]// you think, //human, is this the adventure you are sending me on?// But it's getting hotter... and hotter... You would have preferred Napa Valley [[A minute goes by...]] You start to feel uncomfortably hot, the silver walls are warming up too You wait, perhaps for something to happen. It just gets progressively hotter You start to feel funny You feel as if you are spinning, you can feel the waves of heat off your liquidy form. You feel nauseaus... and an inexplicable need for water... [[This is not fun, human stop this nonsense]] You decidedly like your fate less. This is, needless to say, not what you had [[goat]] in mind. You can: Process your situation with an impressive amount of emotional clarity. It's uncomfortable now, but logically you cannot do anything about it. You are goat milk. Literally, you have no ability to leave this pot. So, wait and see what you become. Where you go. The humans might be strange and sadistic, but it might be worth to [[see what happens]] when this awful situation ends. Or [[fuck it]] Blame the human. It's the one that has caused everything to go all wrong. If you could only defy the laws of physics that you could just say and make your own choices. Because seriously, what is this human nonsense anyways You slosh with more passion and determination than ever before. Slosh Slosh Slosh. You feel a sense of rage and purpose bubble up within you. It's a milky tsunami in this pot. [[Curd Down for What]] //Fear me human// you think, as you see its eyes narrow with confusion //I have mastered the law of inertia. I alone will decide my own destiny...no longer will I be imprisoned in this silver prison. In the prison of cold glass jars, stuck with pretenious ass grapes from California. You have wronged me for the last time!// Someone should give you a damn Oscar. The human, however, does not seem to agree. It backs away slowly, and [[you are pleased with yourself.]]You finish off your performance with on big slosh, rising up over the edge of the silver walls to see the human staring from the corner of the tiled and wood panelled kitchen with its mouth gaping. //[[This milk has gone bad...b-b-bad to the bone]]// If you had a leather jacket and sunglasses, you would definitely be putting them on in a slow motion action movie sort of scene. Nice. [[Try to escape the pot]]You swirl down and down, the stench of the abyss overwhelming your natural goat's milk scent. Little bits of food and God knows what join you as you twist and turn. //Where the hell are these old rickety pipes taking you?// You are getting really dizzy...you feel yourself being thinned out and pulled apart. [[You black out.]]Congrats. You now lack singular form and are now a disembodied consciousness in a sewer. But there's no point crying over spilt milk. You have also lived your life on your terms. You have found your own adventure. Where you live there are many untold (although moldy) stories to be explored.The human lifts the weird metal spike out of the pot (and out of you, eurgh) and makes noises. "86 degrees Farenheit exactly. Rad," it says. //It does not feel rad, human// The heat source goes away and you are moved to a slightly cooler location. You let out an internal sigh. Much more comfortable. Imagine if you had done something rash. It is cool and quiet. You are in a new part of the kitchen, and on the reflection of the pot you can almost see the stars. You almost don't notice the human pouring and stirring in a packet of mysterious powder. [[Drift off to sleep]]You had a fitful night of sleep. 12 hours went by but in your fever dream state it felt like an eternity. You begin to remember... You remember bleats and gloved hands. You remember the smell of wood, the metallic bucket you spent your first minutes. The goats tumbled around the barn, manure and hay combine into a smell the reminds you of something lost. [[But you never really belonged there.]] And you wake. You scream. //What have I become?!//. You don't feel right, you barely recognize yourself. You have become clumps of sticky white...What are you anymore? You feel yourself splitting, one part of your mind has staid with the water part of you--you feel thin, weak, and weird in consistency. This part of you feels like a lesser version of your past self. [[But the other part of your mind, good God is it alien. You panic at your self awareness.]]Yeah, that's what you thought. You see the human bustling around with a large jar and a white cloth. " The curds," it says, "are ready" It picks you up and you feel yourself tipping over this cloth. [[You feel suffocated]]You are tearing in two, slowly with each drip. This fabric is made of some hellish material that allows the water part of you to escape...But through some witchcraft your consciouness does not follow With each drip, you see yourself being becoming this gellatenous, jiggling form. This was never the future you saw for yourself. You do notice the human, presumably for evil reasons, looks pleased. You are left alone again. Left with pain and dryness. Left with incurable self loathing, felt with your entire body. [[Sleep off the angst]]Unknown to you, twelve hours go by again. This time much quicker, as you are not interuptted by bodily transformaton but sedated by extreme emotional distress. But you wake up. It is a new day (for you at least). You have been gently wrapped in this cloth, the human holds you with tender affection and pride. //What is this?// you ask. [[The human smiles]]It kneads in a spoonful of clear crystals, and with each massage you feel richer, more confident, proud. You can feel the waves of excitement roll off the human. No matter how much you hated yourself and where you were in the past, they human was excited about you--every step of this journey. At first you thought the human enjoyed to see you suffer. But then you realized the human felt exhilerated for the same reason you now did--because it could see where you were heading. You were going to be something great, something that made people smile. [[Something rolled in herbs]] [[Something you could love]] That something called Chévre. And you are truly the humans favorite. Congrats, you have made a group of people happy as they consumed you... You have realized the purpose you were made for and you [[curdn't]] have imagined anything more satisfying.But wait. You stop yourself. This miracle, this body transformation. Sure the human affected your direction. But the change, the magnificence was in you. And you don't need the affirmation of a human to feel great, in any state or any [[whey]]. You smile to yourself, the self loving log of Chévre. The most confident of goat cheeses. This is it. This is your moment, now that the human is gone and your confidence levels surpass the constrainst of reality you can explore the world around you at your own will [[Slosh Slosh Slosh]]Well you try. You are able to curl upward over the edge of the tall pot once you gain enough momentum. But... you can't escape it. Are the limitations of your inexplicable mobility are tied to the container you are in? [[But you believe you can escape.]] So you keep tryingAlas, you are wrong. You got a bad [[queso]] of overconfidence my friend. The human returned, and it brought a friend. Seeing your great feat they scream and rush towards you. You feel yourself and the silver pot being lifted, and hurled into the sink. The pot clammers to the floor and the human runs away like a coward. You however are swirling around this once spotless sink and are being pulled into what seems to be the [[abyss]].You knew a block of cheddar once. And although it seemed a little dim (American cheese tended to be, probably all the processing reduced their capacity for consciousness), you were rather fond of it. Or rather, its presence in the fridge was something you were comfortable with. But it was because of the cheddar that you discovered what a cheese grater is. And that might be the most heinous invention of humans, because each time the cheddar returned it was in a horrific mangled state. So when you use the expression grating, you are using it as an expression rather than minimizing the suffering of the cheddar. One time when you lived in the fridge, the temperature suddenly dropped. Your environment, despite the movement of produce, tended to be pretty stable. The cold was perfect for you, your body was kept whole and comfortable in the stabibility. But when the temperature drop you felt the whole population in your home suffer. Little crystals of ice formed on the side walls and on the surface of the carrots. They faded and slept, causing a panic in the fridge. The leftovers, veterans of the human world, frosted over quickly and their old delicate composition couldn't take it. They shrivelled and died of thirst. You, the jams, and the grapes were there together... scared. [[But the humans would come to help]]But what did you expect? Hard to say. Those who are religious often express a great love for their creator and those who control their destiny. You don't know who to consider your creator. There is of course, the goats...that is literally where you came from, where consciousness was made and began for you. But the goats were there, producing milk, because of the humans. The humans, instead of letting you fade away into another existence that could have been, collected you in a bucket and ensure a life for you. The literal creation of the substance or the preservation of consciousness? Who do you look to for [[guidance?]]Most people go their whole lives without being able to consolidate the presence of their own consciousness and take responsibility for--and pride in--their own existence. The grapes, the yogurt, the paella, and even the sundried tomatoes couldn't do it. Well done young Chévre. Knowing yourself and being comfortable with what drives you...sometimes that alone is enough. Plus, you smell great. Be happy, little ChévreAll baguettes you've ever met (granted met is kind of a loose term because they were never in the fridge for very long at all) want to be used for fondue. Humans love fondue. Baguettes love fondue. It's the most fun way to be food, and who could argue with that? You spend your life in the company of great people who are the happiest they'll ever be. If you luck out and are with interesting humans (this tends to happen because fondue attracts cool people) you learn so much about the world and get absorbed into debates. Fondue gives you time to throw yourself into life and everything it has to offer. Baguettes are universally loved and are a part of so much. And as much as you could never be those instant gratification, hedonistic grainheads...you do envy them sometimes. And look the pun was a bit of a stretch. But you are particularly fond(ue) of this one. Sorry not sorry.//I heard it through the grapevine No longer would you be mine baby.// Life in the fridge did not afford many relationships. Produce moved in and out, it was comparable a trucker's pitt stop. They sometimes shared their stories, sometimes didn't, but there was always an air of not being where you should be... that there was something more you were just biding your time for. At the time you thought there were permenant relationships there. The sundried tomatoes, though worlds apart, seemed to have something specicial. They seemed so soulfull, so reflective...any words you could capture from them seemed to explain some lost grandeur about the world. High hopes balanced by great experienced. They made you laugh and feel loved ...but underneath all of that was almost a great sadness. And it killed you that you could never get close enough to understand all of that tragedy and beauty. Though they left the fridge often [[they always returned.]] The most interesting individual you had met in the fridge was a bowl of leftover paella. She had been there a few days before you, but you might have had an easier time adjusting to life in the fridge. She had, of course, not actually seen Spain. But she knew about Spain, something in the preparation perhaps infused her with cultural backstory, and the chef who made her accidentally gave her a dream of going to (what the paella saw as) home. She used to go on about cobblestone streets, Gothic churches, and artists. A country with siestas, great foodfood, wine...a country that knew how to live. there food was not just a tool of the capitalist machine, but a religious experience. Running of the bulls and the Dali Museum. There, she told you, we would be on the level of gods. [[This was of course all speculation and heavy romanticization.]]Curd down for what you ask? Well you say alway curd up for dairy related puns. Curd down for taking control of your own life. Take that seriously, kids. You were meant to be consumed, but instead you were stored. You don't remember how, but you woke the next day to find yourself in a glass jar. It was cold, unnaturally cold. You remember the warmth of a mother's belly. Of summer air. You hated the cold and unnatural darkness at first, but you grew to love it. It was safe and reliable. You remember the other beings--grapes, other milks, broccolli--moving in and out of shelf. You remember catching a glimpse of the human's face, wondering what on earth it must see and feel. You remember feeling...happy? [[You remember]]You have become floating clumps of slippery fat. You feel dirty and disgusted and you hate it. You hate the way that you can no longer slosh about. That you don't feel thoughts come easily, connected by a coherent experience. //No, no, no, no please no// But worst of all you lose faith. You lose faith in the human that was supposed to bring you to your purpose. How could your be something so heinous, so disgusting? What good could you provide the world, what miserable creature would dare consume this mess you have become. [[This couldnt get any worse]]There was once a yogurt that lived in the fridge next to you, briefly. He wasn't the best. In fact, he was pretty much the worst. Bombastic, insincere, annoying, and all around a jerk. He used to drip his cow's milk water all over the fridge. Ew. And he wouldn't shut up about cows and grass and all the methane producing activities around cows. You mentioned the goats you came from once. That was a mistake. The fool went on about the reasons that goats were subpar animals. Moo's and bleats (or screeches, fair enough), size, eyelashes, whatever. Sure the ancient Greeks used cow-eyed as an expression of great beauty. Who even cares yogurt, it's all dairy. Cheesus. Despite all his bull, however, he also offered on point of interest to the fridge. As he was, ahem, "organic freerange homemade" he had spent a lot of time outside watching the humans. That's how we all know that they are most likely well intentioned. But more importantly, it's also how we know about Bruce Wayne (or was it John Wayne?) and Braveheart. Either way, you knew about action movie tropes. And more importantly you know what it takes for true badassery. You found out later that the humans, apparentlly, had told said that you and the sunddried tomatoes would one day pair well, two perfect complements of some whole. You balanced each other out. When you talked, it was as if all physical obstacles between you two disappeared. It felt electric. But, you lived in a truck stop. The sundried tomatoes were always too mature, too good for you. And so it wasn't meant to be. When they finally left you behind in the fridge, presumably for the linguine, you felt a hollowness inside you. But now you had ambition, you a destiny set out by Humans. You had something bigger than the blossing relationship across the limits of fridge structure. //[[Wait and see what they'll do first]]// you tell yourself, focusing on the promise of the humans. //And try not to think about what could have been.// The grapes cried and moaned. Their life, though they had seen much of the world, had been padded and carefully sheltered. Their watery composure didn't make them cut out for adversity. You soothed them, telling them it would be okay. The humans would come. The frost would stop time, but never hurt us. The jams, however, had something to fear. Too cold, they worried, and our containers would burst. You had waited then, anxiously, scared that at any moment you'd hear a tinkle of glass as the jams would be destroyed. The yogurt had seen the explosion of iced tea in the freezer. //Who was to say it wouldn't happen to us.// But the the night passed, and the human came and fixed it. Though you shivered and drifted in and out of consciousness, you and the grapes and the jams survived. The carrots defrosted. The fridge was no longer inhospitable tundra, but home. The humans make things better, you concluded. [[A minute goes by...]]Imagine an almost week old paella finding away to cross the ocean to a country on the other side of the world. It's ridiculous. You bit your tongue as the grapes would scoff when she insisted that she was going home to Spain. But she had such a loose connection to reality that she didn't seem to understand how impossible it was...how pathetic she seemed. And like most leftovers, she got dry, moldy, and sick. You and the others cringed as they watched her grow old. For you and your friends in the fridge, this was her death. And she was dying deluded and miserable...but she also genuinely believed this was the best thing that could happen to her. A shrivelled version of herself, she declared as she was thrown into a trash can that this was her chance. She really believed she was going home to Spain. It was strange that this was who you are thinking of now, about to make a break for it. And there's a chance you might be as deluded as she was, but the desire for something knew and the memory of her optimism is giving you the nerve. [[But you believe you can escape.]] All of these questions seem ridiculous, especially for insiginifcant produce and luxury food items to be asking. The grapes sure didn't see the need to question the nature of existence, because the purpose seemed clear: be consumed or die. The desire for consumption, the desire to be desired by the humans. This was the understanding of the unquestioning foods. But you and the sundried tomatoes and, for as long as they were there, the capers kept digging. Because as much as the desire to be consumed was a core part of your nature, you all wondered if there wasn't something more to existence. Why would you have consciousness without the ability to make your decisions and initiatives? The humans have no knowledge of this consciousness, so where does the consciouness come from? More importantly, is there really something there that makes the humans so special, so wise that they can override our consciousness for their needs? Or is that fundamental drive the purest thing to aspire to? A wave of emotion comes over you as you remember your lost friends and loved ones. Their conversations ring in you ears as you say [[This is not fun, human stop this nonsense]] hoping someone will hear you.