Women

Eggs, Lemon Curd, and Cream

by Tanya Tufanova 
03/24/21
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Eggs, lemon curd, and cream. Eggs, lemon curd, and cream, I repeated over and over inside my head. You see, I had neglected jotting a shopping list down before leaving home. Tick, tick, tick, my car’s indicator clicked as I rounded the corner, then my lips curved upward as my eyes grew round. “Awwww, that is the cutest scene.” I clapsed my hands over my heart, then clamped them back on the steering wheel as my car veered left. Eyes on the road. Hands on the steering wheel, I chastised myself, but I couldn’t look away.

There, in my corner store’s carpark, sloshed a murky-blue puddle, which somehow still reflected the sky. Marshmellow-like clouds wafted in it, and at the puddle’s edge poised a glistening-white golden-crested cockatoo, its auric mowhawk sprawling back and forth along its head, first standing erect, pointed skyward, then flattening, idling on its back. The little fella swiveled his head from side to side, blinking his eyes. Every now and then, his curved beak darted into the shallow pool, lapping up the water with his metal-grey tongue.

My eyes lingered, then snapped back toward my windscreen. “So sweet.” If only I could paint. I would daub that, then wrap it up in brown paper and string and ship it to my mother as a ‘just-because present.’ ”

Then, my shoulders hunched and my ears crawled.

“ARRRRK, ARRRK, ARRRK,” the cockatoo screeched.

I grimmaced, wishing I could press my hands over my ears. Wow, pretty face, but what a nasty yodel. He caws like the creaky front gates of an Agatha-Christie’s-haunted mansion, but even worse than that, as if those gates were dragging across bitumen as they trail behind the revved up car of a guffawing gang of hoons.

Then, just as shattering, I had the most ground-breaking thought. Proverbs 11:22 says, ‘As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a lovely woman who lacks discretion.’ Yes, now I see, I thought. There are many women (and men) with pretty faces, but a filthy mouth spewing gossip, blasphemy, anger, lustful discourse, slander, and curse words tarnish their allure, as does wallowing in any other kind of sin. And so, I resolved that if I had any semblance of beauty, or even if I had none, I would always strive to have an inner loveliness, a fragrant fairness, that pointed viewers away from any form of earthly comeliness I might possess and toward the One truly endowed with beauty.

Proverbs 11:22 NKJV