the fruit orchard
random thought
let me tell you about the story of a fruit orchard1, something i concocted in my mind while watching the smudge of greens and browns outside the bus windows. i implore you to keep an open mind, understand the complexities of what i am trying to say.
this is short prose; upon first read it appears as absolute nuisance. it is not. i implore you to keep an open mind, understand the complexities of what i am trying to say.2
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am.”
— sylvia plath, aka my current literature muse
as the sullen girl turned her head away from the heated glares of the sun, she admired the hues of greens and browns blending seamlessly. the bus came to a halt, then continued, then halt, continue, halt, continue, halt… you must understand the gist of things!
her stop had approached, one would think she’d be relieved at the prospect of escaping such a tedious journey - au contraire, the sick feeling in her gut deepened. she wasn’t ready, the memories were too much. or perhaps, the girl had merely imagined all this in her head.
she walks swiftly, almost tripping over a misplaced cobblestone. her destination twists to the left, she must be quick, he is waiting. he is waiting.
to the twenty-something protagonist of this tale, something has gone horribly wrong. but we know best. there is no man waiting, she has been fooled once again, the cryptic texts! she was certainly amongst the fools.
in the man’s absence, a beautiful fruit orchard exists. it is grand in its presentation, well-structured soil pathways and ripe crop. the fruit glistens, but it is forbidden. it glistens again - no dear girl, it is forbidden!
there is something regarding the uncanny charm of the forgotten fruit orchard that draws her in neck-first, she is blinded by lust and desire. “you don’t eat certain fruit” they told her once. maybe they were right. maybe she no longer knew what she wanted. maybe, just maybe, the fruit was merely an attractive distraction.
the first bite is a surreal experience, she feels the heavens and the earths3 move, a whisper of temptation, “just taste it longer, sweet girl. taste it for four months.”
they say that man’s inherent weakness is giving into their desires. but if a man chooses to do so, they shall never raise the matter. it didn’t happen, it wasn’t your fault. essentially, a man may commit any act without fear of accountability. yet if the culprit was instead a sullen twenty-something female with burdensome hair, suddenly it would be an issue. a town wide spectacle. “how dare she, the slag!”
double standards are the very soil consumed foundations of the girl’s sacred fruit orchard. she ignores them, for they cannot exist in her head. she is supposedly not capable of carrying this much.
let us return to the fruit narrative, the girl takes another bite, and another. three more bites. just another bite! at first she wasn’t sure, but now she likes the idea of things. the idea of the unspoken pronoun.
the fruit metamorphoses into a plum, distinctive in its appearance and sweeter than what is expected. it melts on her tongue, the texture is appealing. she feels whole again, the plum just gets her. everyone she knows adores the plum fruit, so she should too.
“i see you’ve tried it.” a sneering voice says, and the girl spins around frantically to see another man. he is shrivelled in appearance, towering and plump. she feels a surge of disgust. “the plum fruit. there will be consequences.”
he raises an axe, as if exterminating a stubborn branch penetrating his backyard. she braces herself and cannot fight, for she is paralysed. if only they understood you. now, the girl is gone. she has transformed into a pomegranate.
tragic it is, so poetically and devastatingly tragic - the girl has become the very thing she consumed. the thing she was seduced into. let us shift the perspective, what if i told you the plum she had ripped apart on her tongue had been the boy she liked. initially, it had been attractive and had opened up the most wonderful of possibilities. she was destined to be the girl who devoured the plum. it was all she could envision, even in her final moments. but within the final bites, even with death, the taste changed slightly. it was still sweet, but with a bitter aftertaste. it appears that the plum has shrivelled, once a plum ripe with sweetness and promise, now a mere afterthought. it had poisoned her before the peculiar and grotesque stranger had cut her in half.
even in death, she still thought. her soul was gone, her mind remained intact. she was then a pomegranate, bursting with life. those she had once fondly seen as friends, split pomegranate-her open. they blamed her for the seeds spilling onto the soil, the bloody mess in their wretched palms. the plum had not killed me directly, but its absence had rendered me weak and useless. he-plum wasn’t the one who broke me, not necessarily. but his silence made me bleed onto the palms of now strangers.
it is cruel really, like the overripe pomegranate, being torn apart by hands that didn’t belong to me. rather, i was blamed for the mess. “the plum so sweet, never to blame!” they caw. i try to ignore them. my mind threatens to disintegrate with the burden of my thoughts. the plum who had once known my sweetness, lay there, too afraid to touch the remnants. i was left to retrieve my scattered seeds from the soil.
the hues of green and brown no longer appeal to the girl. she just wished she had stayed on that stupid bus. curiosity and the lustful possibility of something special had poisoned her, rendering her the mess of seeds that no one felt able to collect.
this is short prose; upon first read it appears as absolute nuisance. it is not. i implore you to keep an open mind, understand the complexities of what i am trying to say.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
— Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
hope you enjoyed this read, it is so deeply personal to me. made this up on the bus journey
love you all x
alee
a fruit orchard breeding multiple fruit, from the plums that are slowly losing sense of themselves and the pomegranate that splatters meaninglessly onto the floor.
purposeful repetition, i implore you to keep an open mind, understand the complexities of what i am trying to say, for they didn’t.
but there is only one earth? is she sane?