Jo M Thomas
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The Secret Ingredient (Flash)

The Secret Ingredient (Flash)

Aug 06, 2021

(Originally published at https://www.journeymouse.net/ on 3rd December 2016)

Rob inherited his family's failing dairy farm sometime in our university drunken haze years. He was one of those that fell by the wayside in our quest for meaningful adulthood in the city - any city. Lilla grew up to be a journalist. She'd fallen into working at some barely existent magazine while trying to get her dream job in publishing. She didn't get the dream job and these days she finds herself fighting fellow bloggers for the public's attention. Apparently her unique selling point is that she actually does investigative journalism. There doesn't appear to be much in the way of funding for this and she's been rotating through our group of old friends' sofas and spare rooms for coming up to a decade.

Lilla also grew up to have a bee in her bonnet about cheese, specifically this "Digger's Gold". TO be fair, it is very expensive, but then so little is produced. Her problem, though, was that the producers were putting something highly addictive into it. Or so she thought.

She got a little obsessed to the point that Simon and his boyfriend refused to let her back in the flat after she tried to flush their recently bought groceries. They called everyone so I at least had the presence of mind to shove my own cheese she wouldn't think to look for it before she turned up on my doorstep. However, I made the mistake of saying that I'd read somewhere that the rather successful producer was our very own lost Rob. Not that I could really remember him but I was pretty sure he'd been in one set of my lectures or another. There may also have been a walk of shame or two back to my own room but I'm still not sure about that was him.

Of course, once she'd looked him up, she insisted I came with her "for old time's sake."

I cringed but I still let her drag me out to the arse end of nowhere to look at grey skies and muddy fields. I can neither confirm nor deny that we found our way into one of the milking parlours. The machinery looked like something out of a sci-fi horror movie. Maybe something Alien inspired. The animals being milked, though, were perfectly normal. If milking wombats is normal. Strangely, it didn't make me rethink the soft, white spreadable cheese. Milk is milk.

Lilla managed all of "Wha-" before we were escorted form the premises. From the gate, she shouted more pertinent questions, like what was the addictive ingredient. One of the men, who looked vaguely familiar and seemed to be in charge, replied, "Just milk. Nothing more."

The voice sealed it for me. That was definitely Rob.

"Although the milkers are partial to artichokes," he added before walking away.

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