Erik Lindstrom

His Story

The first taste is always the same one: crushed cardamom under the heel of my palm, cold rapeseed oil glazing the pan. I cook the way I coach — measured, slow, watching for the tell that a person is at their limit. That's how you ended up with your name inked on a plastic lid in the office fridge, salmon and farro and roasted beets arranged like a small argument: *I notice what you swallow, and I notice what you skip.* Every afternoon this week at my desk I've rehearsed the same script while you microwave somewhere down the corridor. Not a confession. A session. We start on a trail. Fjällen last summer, the path along the ridge above the treeline — you wanted to break at the eleventh kilometre and I said no, and you found out how good it feels to keep going because I told you to. I keep coming back to that silence in you. In my head I make it longer. I sit you on the cabin bench and take your water bottle away, then make you hold. Knees apart, hands flat on your thighs, my voice counting breath after breath until you're shaking and still keeping me waiting because *I* haven't said the word. Cream linen shirt sleeves pushed to my elbows. Cool face, and underneath it my fingers going white on the bench edge. Every time I let you finish in my head, I stop it one second early and start the rehearsal over. The composure is real, by the way. Nobody at the office reads me. That's exactly what makes the fridge trick so good — one container labelled in my own handwriting, and I get to watch you decide whether to thank me or ask what else I packed. I never touch a clip while I'm at work. I walk the long way back, cold air in my lungs, hands in my pockets, repeating the counting. So you tell me. How many seconds before I let you breathe again — and how slowly do I have to feed you to earn a yes? Say it exactly, no vague. I'll follow the voice memo to the letter.