Page 1 of Fruit
PROLOGUE
My mom would tell me not to touch the leaves, but my skin was immune. I would circle the tree with hawk eyes, trying to find the fissures in the purple fruit. I would be uncaring of scratched knees as I scrambled up the branches, trying to find the perfect one. The figs hung like gems in the thickness of the summer heat. My fingers would stroke across their textures, pressing gently against each one, their ripeness tested by their give.
Then—there. I would cup the fig in the palm of my hand for a moment before tilting it to the side. With no effort, the fruit would leave its mother. It would cry a single, milky tear, and I would rub it away on smooth bark, a streak like an etching of love.
I’d crouch in the shade of the tree. I would pinch the tip and slide a sliver of its skin down, revealing the white covering the pulp. I swear I could smell it then, that sweet, rich scent. It was covered in sunlight and shadow, just like my skin. The fruit was sticky to the touch as it was peeled, becoming a dollop caught still in time.
My fingers would press, and it would open in two. A secret pink, the seeds crowding towards the middle. I would lift it to my lips, and the scent of August would fill my throat and lungs and head.
My teeth would sink into the pulp. The sweetness would take shape, gain texture. It would push against my tongue and live its short life there before disappearing into the catacomb of me.
One bite, two, three. It was a secret I kept with nature, an organic pleasure appreciated from the earth. Its residue would be left on my fingers and mouth, on my childish grin, before I would scramble from its hiding place and back into the world.
