His odd friend

When the poet first met him at the pub, his best friend was drowning his heartache in whiskey. He was repeating to anyone who would listen that his heart was made of emmental. He was the type indeed. But he insisted and claimed that it was not a metaphor: he actually had a piece of cheese instead of a normal heart.

For a long time he only had suspicions about it, intrigued by the vague smell of emptiness that became too familiar and weak of a trail to be followed.

However, one day he could not resist anymore the temptation that increasingly tormented his mind over the years: he plunged his hand into his own chest and ripped out a blood-red piece of EMMENTAL, beating like a real heart.

He tried to eat it right away, to check if it actually tasted like cheese or flesh, or a subtle mix of both. But the emmental did not reach the stomach. It did not even touch the tongue: once it reached his mouth, it darted like an arrow straight into the oesophagus and found a way back to its initial place, God only knows how.

According to him, the whole case still remains a complete mystery for the scientific community. The most eminent specialists diagnosed an hallucination.

The poet believes his friend though, because the latter bears a scar so red and thick on his chest that one can barely touch it without provoking a scream of pain, and anyone can feel his distress when he talks about it.