Rotting Fruit

Summer to Winter

I.

Grace says I have a talent for picking out ripe fruit, and she might be right. I tap apples next to my ears to assess their quality and source peaches that will be perfectly ripe by morning. I put them in the pockets of my backpack and leave them there. Of course, I remember them, but the time never feels quite right to eat them, so they sink further and further down, stacking on top of each other.

Then at some point it feels inevitable, I have to eat them now or it will be too late, but I can’t bring myself to bite in, can’t even bring myself to take them out of the pocket, so they stay there, shrivelling and mushing and sinking for days, and yet I carry them with me wherever I go, always attached to my side.

Interlude: Joseppi — the man, the poet, with the typewriter — says secrets are ripe fruit, raw and bittersweet.

I let the fruit rot. Piles and piles of rotten fruit. I finally collected two peaches out of the pocket and took them to the trash can. The kitchen trash can. They invited a colony of fruit flies that infested, overtook every kitchen and bathroom. Hundreds of them because the time never felt right because I couldn’t bite in. What if they didn’t taste good?

I throw a rotten black and oozing banana into the bushes. Grace finds it weeks later when she's picking up confetti.

We had to move out early because the fruit flies became too distressing.

Maybe I’m not good at picking ripe fruit — I never find out.

II.

I realized as I walked home two nights ago that I hadn’t eaten fruit in days. Has it been weeks? A shocking lack of vitamins and minerals.

In my dream that night swarms of fruit flies followed me around and buzzed so I couldn’t see anything. I swatted them away with a broom. I chased them out of my room, and I had peace for a moment, but I could hear my roommates fighting them in the kitchen as they swarmed their heads and banged into my door. We tried to lure them outside, but they had already laid their eggs.

I brought a pear and a banana home from the dining hall in my coat pockets last night. Both not quite ripe. The banana still tinted green and the pear hard to the core. I carried them around for several hours, and everytime I put my hands in my pockets to stay warm or retrieve various items (11 blue plastic forks, my id card, a candle, etc.), I was surprised by their presence. Alarmed might be a better word. The rough texture of the pear inspired fear. Images of it rotting and the buzzing of flies attacking its bruised skin flashed in my mind.

I took them out of my bag when I got back to my room and set them on my desk. My heart beat faster. Fruit flies filling up my room. I choke on them. Their small bodies are sucked up my nose and coat the back of my throat. I gag and retch. I scream, and they enter my lungs.

Kat says she could take them, the fruit, to the kitchen. No, I say, it's best to have them in here. I have to have them here. This is one of those fears you’ve got to face.

I won’t let them rot.

III.

The fruit almost rotted again (the pear, the orange, and mostly the banana). But it wasn’t my fault this time, I swear. So what happened was I put them in my backpack to go skiing — a trail snack to share. And to be honest the banana was already looking a little brown, but I thought it would be okay for the day.

But then we got in a car crash. Yes a crash, a collision of vehicles. Well, more accurately a FedEx truck rear-ended me. It was icy. He couldn’t stop when I slowed down to make a left turn. The driver had the same birthday as me — January 17 — isn’t that strange? Two years older, though he looked more than that with his full beard and tilted gait.

Which is all to say that we didn’t ski. And we moved all of the stuff, the skis and the boots and the helmets and the backpacks and the poles and the extra layers, into mom and dad’s car to take us back home. And I tossed it all in a corner of my room, with the recycling. But I remembered it this time. A nagging in my head telling me to take them out of my bag. The banana might be too far gone. They turn so quickly. But the pear and the orange are certainly fine. I’ll rest them on my desk.

I haven’t taken them out of the bag yet if I’m being honest. Something is stopping me, making it hard. I’ve felt this feeling before. The thought of them exhausts me. It scares me to look at them. I am repulsed by them. I’m really not sure why. I’m going to do it though. I imagine myself taking them out and putting the pear and the orange on my desk and taking the banana to the kitchen trash. It will take 30 seconds maximum, but I feel a panic rising inside of me.

What if I just left them there?

If I can’t see them, they can’t change right?

They can’t rot if I pretend they aren’t there.