Cheese Apocalypse

My two friends work at a bank, and write stories when they are bored. I told them I wanted to write a story as well. My friend told me to write about the Cheese Apocalypse, and I took his challenge. It is only the beginning, and I don't have any specific style of writing that I knowingly cling to, I just write what is in my head. Let me know what you think. This story is entitled,

The Wisconsin incident.

Jonas had been sitting on the sofa in the windowless room, staring at the tree for some time. The cold rays of dusk that fell off of its silver ornaments had been deflected off of walls, across quiet and sullen hallways, and filtered by thick double pane windows during their journey from the outside. By the time it graced artificial needles and branches, the last light of the day had lost half of its already diminished capacity to illuminate.This particular tree was like any other Jonas had seen most Decembers in his own home since before he had developed an agnostic attitude toward Saint Nicholas. It wore the same mirrored glass balls and silver garland which could be purchased at every drugstore on every street corner in every city across the nation. As Jonas' eyes had acclimated to the dim, he could also see smaller black ornaments. These newer decorations moved silently along the branches of the tree, depositing their own silken tinsel, hanging their own festive ornaments of fertility at the end of bare branches. Jonas was reminded of certain friends and neighbors who suffered from what he jokingly labeled T.S.A., or Tenenbaum Separation Anxiety. These were the kind of people who would invite you into their home to watch the Super Bowl in the shadow of their still lingering Christmas tree corpse. The faded green and red paper chains, made lovingly by their ten year old son, holding captive the ghost of Christmas past.

The specimen of Christmas taxidermy that Jonas had been studying, however, was not the result of laziness or obsessive sentimentality. Apart from becoming the new high-rise apartment complex to a colony of Black Widow spiders, the tree stood untouched. Wrapped presents lay beautifully arranged upon the moldy knitted tree skirt. Last year on February first, Jonas had told his dear friend Tim and wife Jessica that the Douglas fir which stood eight and a half feet tall in the corner of their family room, its heirloom angel head pressed sideways up against the ceiling, was officially sad. This tree however, which Jonas had dubbed "Chateau du Arachnid", was less than a week away from looking like a twisted April Fools joke. It belonged to the Knudsens, according to the beautifully crafted calligraphy woodbruned into the plaque above the front door. Thankfully for Jonas, the Knudsen family had been away from home when they died. He had not been as lucky in at least half of the fifteen or so farmhouses that he had visited within the last three months. The first farmhouse he had encountered on his journey of exile was the scene of an family reunion. Several generations of the Rothchild family gathered lifeless in the kitchen and dining room. Grandsons and granddaughters sprawled out around their own private table. Three generations of the Rothchilds, mourning each other's deaths in a communal wake. This grim tableau repeated in homes across the badger state. Newlyweds gathered around their first tree, too dead to appreciate the bountiful scotch pine decorated with designer ornaments by Spode and Swarovski. A small artificial tree on an end table next to an expensive recliner, the lone article of furniture in an eternal bachelor pad. A perimeter of stench surrounded the homes occupied by the not so recently deceased. Jonas noticed that this perimeter was loosely proportionate to the size of the family inside. He had smelled the Rothchild homestead from more than a mile away. Out in rural Wisconsin, the smell of rotting flesh worked as a nauseating treasure map. Although the stench always made him a little sick, Jonas always endured it. The stench lead him to the corpses of people, people with Christmas trees. And underneath nine out of ten Christmas trees in Wisconsin lay the beautiful tin gift box full of meats and cheese from the wonderful people at the Swiss Colony. Ironically, the Swiss Colony was a corporation based solely in America, having nothing to do with settlers or immigrants from Switzerland. Jonas thanked God for Swiss Imperialism none the less.

Cheese had not always been so scarce. Jonas would have much prefer a fresh slice out of a cold wheel of sharp Wisconsin cheddar. Nothing could compare to the way fresh sharp cheddar tasted and smelled. How it first crumbled, then slowly melted in the mouth. How it slid down the throat, and filled the stomach. The taste was more beautiful than anything Jonas has experienced before or since. But that was before the production and sale of cheese had been outlawed near the end of the previous year. All of the fresh cheese in this part of the state had long ago rotted, since no person dare partake for fear of a painful and messy death. Each abandoned batch created its own perimeter of fowl odor. Cheese food products such as Velveta, cheese logs and cracker spread had a shelf life that spanned seasons, some would still be edible until next Christmas. While this artificial cheese did not give Jonas the sense of euphoria as eating the real McCoy, it contained trace amounts and would have to do. Jonas feared what might happen if he was not able to find the orange fuel that drove his new habit. He tended not to think about the possibility of going without. Jonas remembered the first time he had eaten pure cheese, a major turning point in his life. Some attribute this feeling to the sublime bliss of a first love. Others, to an ephiphanous spiritual encounter. For Jonas, it was a solitary slice of marbled Colby Jack. He had torn the sandwich containing it unsympathetically out of the hand of a faultless eight year old girl, causing her to run, her bright orange pumpkin costume bobbing up and down with each stride. She went crying to the nearest teacher performing yard duty, who looked over toward Jonas, the strange man who had robbed a little girl of her lunch. Moments later, out of the corner of his eye, Jonas saw the school's maintenance man 'Orville', according to the name embroidered onto his coveralls, running toward him. He remembered it odd that Orville was holding his broom the wrong way, stick end up, hands gripped tightly around the steel band which held the bristles in place. Jonas retreated, but not before taking one bite from his plunder and experiencing a perfect mixture of total rapture and crushing guilt. Whether for joy or shame, hot tears streamed down his cheeks. Jonas' career as a vegan had abruptly ended.