Ingredients

1.5 cups ice

2 fl oz botanical gin

.75 fl oz lemon juice

.5 fl oz simple syrup

2 fl oz club soda

lemon and mint to garnish

1 consciousness 

a dash of uncertainty as to what that entails

Instructions

Find yourself standing in a well-lit produce section of a grocery store. You have a basket hanging from one arm and seem to be pondering the lemon in your right hand. It is large and bright and a quick scratch at the zest with your thumb reveal its fragrant ripeness as well. You don't need a lemon, but find yourself unable to put it back. You have smelled it, held it, changed it. You have known this lemon too well to simply return it to the winds of chance. You toss it in the basket and finish your shopping. Days pass. The lemon you once looked at as if it hid the secrets and meaning you seek beneath its ripe flesh now taunts you from a window sill where it slightly darkens and prepares to release all its moisture to the atmosphere. It taunts your sentimentality in taking something you didn't need, it taunts your indecision, evidenced by it's continued existence on your shelf, it taunts your humanity, by knowing nothing of what it means be. The lemon does this all without a single word, or even a sound. You always thought of silence as a void, something to be filled, but now that silence is turned against you understand the tremendous, almost unbearable weight it has. You've had enough, you grab the first bottle of alcohol you see in the kitchen and read the label. It's gin, so you google "gin and lemon cocktail", figuring at least the lemon can help banish these thoughts it has uncaringly thrust upon you.  The first result is a Tom Collins recipe, and you dutifully prepare the glass by filling it with some ice and placing it in the freezer while the drink. You grab a knife and cut the lemon in half. As you wring the juice from the bisected fruit, you notice you now feel nothing towards it. It no longer mocks your purchase, as it has found a purpose. It has no agency with which to mock. It even surrenders it's greatest, and perhaps only possession, its silence, as you extract the last drop from its squelching meat. You combine the gin and juice before realizing you have no simple syrup, so you stow the half made drink in the fridge and began heating some water on the stove. As the water comes to a light boil, you fail to understand why exactly you chose to buy the lemon. As you spoon sugar into the boiling water, stirring the mixture to dissolve it, you wonder what kind of person you are. As you take your newly made syrup off the heat and put it in the fridge to cool, you wonder if things can truly exist on their own, or if everything is only real in the context of it's surroundings. Who are you when nothing is around? No home, no other people or animals, not even a lemon on a window sill, would you be anything? You open eyes that you hadn't realized you closed and check the time. Twelve minutes have passed. You carefully measure out some syrup into your half-made drink, before transferring it into a shaker with some ice. You finish shaking and for second time today you feel the smothering weight of silence settle around you, pressing on your chest until it's hard to breathe. You strain the liquid into your chilled glass and carefully remove a curl of zest and skin from the unjuiced half of the lemon. A bit of gently crushed mint leaves here bring a vibrant color to the drink and compliment the botanicals of the gin as well as the tartness of the lemon quite nicely. Tossing the dirtied bar ware into the sink, you return to your drink at last, finally looking at it in its glory. It's sophisticated and aromatic, with a delicately fetching garnish. As you see your own disheveled appearance, you  wonder if this is just the lemon mocking you once more. You take a sip. Does it taste how you expected? What else would it taste like? Does the flavor defy your expectations. What were you even expecting?