Milk

Milk
He was really keen to take every advantage of the subjects suggested in the creative writing class he was attending, but this one was a teaser.1

How could anyone decide what to write about when there were so many variations to choose from?2

His thesaurus revealed a long list, each one evoking a memory, a backward glance into a long and varied past.3

Condensed milk, dried milk, evaporated milk, homogenised milk, low fat, hi-lo, pasteurised, skim, full-cream: a whole catalogue to choose from.4

But the simple word milk kept spilling out of the recesses at the back of his brain. What was that phrase that was used to describe extracting money from someone in an underhand way – to milk, to bleed, to exploit, to drain or to empty. Which one of these might provide a creative starting point?5

Long ago in his war-time years in the army, he remembered some of his mates in the air-force talking about their training on the ‘milk run’ – a sortie against an easy target, on which inexperienced trainee pilots could be used with impunity, because it was as safe and simple as a milk-man’s round.6

And after the war was over and he eventually started a university course, there was that lecturer, who must have had some sort of cheesy leaning in his diet, and whose pet quote was that ‘milk is rendered immortal in cheese’7

It was at university that a study of the history of the Roman Empire had disclosed to him matters never revealed at pre-war high school, such as
the intimate details of the goings on between Caesar and Cleopatra, Anthony and Cleopatra and, in spite of reports in his local newspaper that Cleopatra was not the beauty she was reputed to be, that in her hey-day she maintained her youthful beauty by bathing in asses milk.8

Asses milk! What next? But, sure enough a quick reference to Google on his computer, revealed that milk for human consumption does not come only from cows but also, in different parts of the world, from goats, camels, llamas, reindeer, sheep, and buffalo.9

Temporarily running out of ideas for further writing, he decided to take a break from his computer screen and nip down in his car to the local filling station, where there was a convenience store, for a carton of his favourite fruit yoghurt.10

All this upset recently about the price of petrol. Today it was only 95 cents a litre – he should fill up before the price went up again.11

Although, he thought, petrol was still a bloody sight cheaper than milk! 12

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