Suppose you loved ice cream. Your ice cream. You had an ice cream maker that made, for you, the most delicious ice cream.

Sure, the ice cream maker wasn’t always perfect but for the most part, it made the most amazing ice cream.

You never went anywhere or did anything without your ice cream. Everyone came to know you with your ice cream maker.

One day, after many years, the ice cream maker was gone. Where did it go? Did you lose it somehow? Searching through enough tears to fill a river twice, you looked everywhere for your ice cream maker, but it’s not to be found anywhere.

You blamed yourself, over and over, for being so careless that you would lose your ice cream maker. Surely you weren’t worthy of such a valuable item. And as such, despondency became your trusted ally.

Unbeknownst to you, someone stole your ice cream maker and they were now enjoying your ice cream. A friend saw them with your ice cream maker and told you were to find it.

And there it was. But it was not the same at all. Sure, it was the same ice cream maker, but it was now soiled and the ice cream looked and tasted different. You left the ice cream maker with them as it was of no use to you now.

Deciding that your friends were right when they said one day you’ll find a new ice cream maker, you started searching the world for the most perfect ice cream maker. You missed ice cream so damn much.

After a fruitless search, and a few candidates, you decided that the best course of action would be to build your own ice cream maker. So you started gathering the parts of what you thought would make a great ice cream maker.

Finally, you had your ice cream maker you could call yours. Except the ice cream had no flavor.

Yes, it was ice cream. It looked like ice cream. You made it to be ice cream. And it was YOUR ice cream. But the ice cream was just ice. Just ice. Frozen water.

Just cold, frozen ice, pretending to be ice cream. So you decorated it as best you knew how, with sparkles and flavor. But it was still just frozen shaped ice that looked pretty. Something was missing.

There was no substance. There was nothing to hold it all together, nothing to make the ingredients hug each other. There was only ice, no cream.

“But at least you have ice cream again!” everyone shouted joyfully. “You’re so lucky!”

Yes, I’m so lucky. So fucking lucky…