The sixteenth day, twelfth hour, and eleventh minute

The first time I did it, it had been sixteen days, twelve hours, and eleven minutes since I'd been released from prison.

"You will know," Homes said, "because it will make you happy."

Can you imagine? The world had changed so much. Things old looked new and things new looked imagined. Cars looked like softer versions of themselves. TVs looked like they had lost their winter weight. Even people looked different. I felt like a circle in a world composed of angles.

I couldn't believe what was happening. It was happening and I could feel the happiness inside me swell.

The last person I said goodbye to in prison was Homes. I wanted it to be that way, so I did not say goodbye to the prison guards, or the other inmates when they shouted, "You're outta here Jimenez, but you'll be back!" I simply nodded or shook my head.

Guy prepared the apartment. "Here it is," he said. He showed me the shared patio and as we stood out there, I could feel eyes on us from the windows other than my own. The first night on my own, I kept all the windows open, even though it was cold outside, just so I could stick my hand out, knowing that there were no bars.

Guy bought me new kitchen supplies, but on the sixteenth day after having been released, I found an old food processor in the back of the cupboard. Maybe it was left from previous tenants? When I plugged it in and turned the switch on, I was surprised that it worked.

"It will happen suddenly," Homes used to say. "You think you know and then your love grows in another, more passionate direction, suddenly and intensely sometimes."

I bought the supplies.

In kindergarten, I made butter. I remember, because it made me happy. Everyone in class took turns shaking a container filled with heavy whipping cream and soon enough, we enjoyed butter on crackers.

I rushed through the supermarket with a shopping cart. There were so many varieties of food, the store seemed to grow even while I was in it and music played through speakers I could not see. I must have looked crazy, with only heavy whipping cream and salt in my shopping cart, whizzing through the aisles.

In the twelfth hour of the sixteenth day after having been released from prison, the butter ingredients hummed inside the food processor. In the eighth minute, the contents inside the vessel separated. My heart jumped. In the eleventh minute, I took a spoonful of homemade butter and ate it and cried.

"What if I don't find what makes me happy?" I used to ask Homes.

"Then look harder," he said.

I looked at what I'd made and it was the first time I lol'd since my release.

BUTTER!