Story #19: Apples

A fruit is a fruit is a grief spiral.

Maybe grief is like biting into an apple right as summer turns to fall. At that time of year, apples are tantalizing, their insides crisp and refreshing. However, even upon that first glorious bite, you know you will eventually reach the core–that tough, indigestible center with seeds that contain traces of cyanide. By sinking your teeth into this whole, perfect apple, you obligate yourself to cope with its core. Maybe, as you walk, you will come across a garbage can or a patch of dirt or a compost bin to toss it away, but there’s no guarantee. Maybe you’ll hold onto it until you get home. Maybe you’ll forget about it completely, letting it fester in your lunch bag. You’ll discover it as you pack for a picnic with friends; it will be old and smelly. No way to ignore it now.

Even if you do throw the core away, it stays with you. Its juices cover your palms, making the spaces between your fingers stick together. The sensation of pulling your fingers apart is at once satisfying and repulsive. You do it over and over.

The shiny, red apple skin that you once so admired–that enticed you to take the first bite, is now caught between your teeth. You do your best to pick it out, but you’re in public and it would be rude to reach that far back into your mouth, maneuvering around your tongue with sticky, sweet fingers. This tiny bit of peel puts pressure on your gums. It doesn’t hurt exactly, but it irritates and preoccupies you. Nothing you think, say, or do for the rest of the day will be a lone action. It will be partnered with this pressure, this longing ache that has made you want to rip your teeth out one by one just to be free of it. When it finally comes out after much effort with floss and a toothpick, it’s partially dissolved and smells like plaque. Sometimes, out of nowhere, you think about that feeling of the peel lodged in your gums. If you think about it for too long, you can conjure a phantom pressure that neither floss nor fingers can remove. You become wary of biting into whole apples. From now on, only apple slices. They may turn brown and mealy after a few hours, but they have been neatly severed from their core and are, therefore, more convenient to eat.

But, then again, the memory of the pressure is the memory of the apple, an apple that was so worth eating that you bit through to its inedible center. What a bright, delicious apple you enjoyed at autumn’s peak. Its scent the scent of an orchard filled with blossoms and children shrieking delightfully as they climb haystacks. Of teenagers huddling close together on the haunted hayride, pretending not to be scared. Of couples drinking hot cider and shooing away bees. This memory, with its pain and discomfort, is the memory of your favorite fruit that you often forget is your favorite. Off-season, apples are crumbly and dull. They taste like disappointing school lunches and a fervent desire for something more exotic–perhaps a tangerine or a strawberry. But, in the right season, and especially in New England, an apple is your favorite. Despite the juices and their inconvenient, fibrous, toxic cores, you always come back to them. Every August, you smell their sweet aroma and notice signs pointing to the nearest orchard. Most of the time you settle for what’s at the grocery store, but every few years, you decide to take a trip to one of these orchards. You turn down the road, park your car, and make your way to the trees. You pick the reddest, pinkest, and greenest varieties you can find, filling your basket until you can no longer bear its weight. You don’t worry about what will become of these apples. You will eat most of them and give the rest to your friends. The pressured feeling on your gums starts to manifest, but you ignore it, pay for the apples, and head back to the car. Once in the driver’s seat, you take a bite from one of the apples at the top of your pile. It is candy pink. On a field trip in elementary school, a friend had this kind of apple in her lunch pail. She told you it was her favorite. For months, you requested your mother only buy Pink Ladies on grocery trips. The apple is as revelatory and delicious as you remember. As you bite down, a piece gets stuck in your molars. You drive home, smelling apples and feeling the lodged peel. When you finish, you have nowhere to put the core. You place it on the passenger seat and it rolls around, staining the fabric with its juices and your saliva. You read the traffic signs through tear-swollen eyes.