Creative Muses January 2008 Prompt #6: Martini Time
The knowledge of the mind and the desires of the body can combine to form a phenomenon called a craving. The body, demanding sustenance, relays this message to the mind, which interprets this message through the individual’s specific dietary preferences. These dietary preferences can rage from a very specific flavor of ice cream to, in the case of James Bond, the subject of this brief study, a very specific drink: a vodka martini. Thus, a craving is born, and it is up to the individual to combat or surrender to it.
Cravings tend to be very strong, difficult to combat, and may occur during unexpected and inappropriate times. James Bond experienced a such a strong, unexpected, and inappropriate craving as he was escaping the police, using a cello case as transport. He took the craving as a sign of weakness. He preferred, in the midst of danger, to focus strictly on getting out of it. He did not want to focus on frivolous matters of appetite and thirst. He would tend to those later in Vienna. Yet, as always, he could not talk himself out of the craving. He did not think it was addiction, so he could not call it a damnable vice. He once tried to reason that one reaches for liquor when things got rough and reached for the familiar when things got unusual, but that did not make much sense in light of his life and career. A cello case certainly was an odd transport, but this was not the first time he had to improvise his means of mobility. He had been in this situation dozens of times before. This was not a rough situation at all. He was confident they would escape alive. So why the need to hydrate with liquor? His inability to explain it away made it more frustrating.
As annoying as the craving was, Bond found, as he finally took a sip of that much desired nectar, that the irritation and longing inherent in a craving made the drink taste better and feel like a soothing exhale. He wondered if pleasure should always have that preceding agony of waiting. Then the liquid was gone, the glass empty, and Bond, completely satisfied, rose to tackle the next leg of his mission.
Of course, when he found himself craving another vodka martini in another unexpected and inappropriate time, Bond went through the same bout of futile combat and eventually, inevitably, surrendered. It was just a shame that Kara made bad vodka martinis.
[ Contains references to the film The Living Daylights.]