Berry was on urge-alert again. She had already eaten one frozen whoopee pie and now took another out of her ice chest. It had freezer-burn. It made a soggy pile on her kitchen counter, so she put a plate under it. Maybe if she put the melted glop in a bowl, maybe then it would stop looking like a cow pie?

She tried and tried not to eat it.  She was getting closer and closer to picking up a spoon. Her old urge latched onto her, more, more, faster, faster.

If only she could stop time–embalm the whoopee pie—devote the coming years to funeral school— to learning the ancient techniques and the latest technologies of preservation. She would gladly take out more loans. She already had a mountain of them. One more? What would it hurt? “Yes, I will pay,” she’d say when they asked her about her fiduciary history (her fingers crossed behind her back)—”I will pay, even unto death.”