Slamming my finger into the doughboy’s tummy, demanding his reaction be made again and again like he’s a tickle me Elmo doll and not a sentient, living being, it occurs to me at some point therein amidst the bruising once white now purple tissue of his tiny battered thorax that I’ve been too ruthless to the little man and so I retire him to the cupboard where he sits in darkness for months and months at a time and I then drown out my sins in globs of raw cookie dough that I shove down my throat like I’m trying to bury myself with sugar food from the inside out. Abreast the commotion of me feasting from behind the closed door of the cupboard I can barely hear him murmur. So be it — after all, he calls out not for me. Just another day in my universe. Just another day. No big deal.