by Terese Svoboda
How plastic – really plastic – gelatin presents as a food. Not only in the “easily molded” sense of a pliable art material but also its transparency. Walnuts and celery, the “nuts and bolts” of gelatin desserts, defy gravity, floating amidst the cheerful jewel-like plastic-looking splendor of the 1950’s, when gelatin was the king of desserts. Gelatin’s mid-century elegance belies its orgiastic sweetness, especially the lime flavor, which is downright otherworldly. If you stir it up hot, half diluted, gelatin lives up to its derelict reputation with regard to the sickbed and sugar, being thick and warm, twice as intoxicatingly sweet, and surely terrible for an invalid’s teeth, if not metabolism. In my novel, Dog on Fire, I hypothesize that lime-flavored gelatin is the perfect murder weapon.
I considered many modus operandi, starting with freezing it into the shape of a dagger. However, such a weapon would quickly dissolve into a lime green, mellow yellow or ruby red puddle or, if undyed, at least clear gelid water, and its penetration would definitely leave a hole. Concuss the victim with gallons of gelatin dropped from a height? The abovementioned puddle would give it away, not to mention the victim’s crushed skull. Both methods could be accomplished with more simpler tools. The only totally invisible murder method is past the taste buds: poison-by-gelatin. This has two positive attributes as a murder weapon: it leaves no physical marks and its results can be somewhat timed. Ah, but the autopsy. Surely that would reveal the poison.
Not always. Read more »