the Apple

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Red Apple
by
Chris Way

The apple sat on the table beside her, red, a wonderfully smooth warm, glowing red, an inviting red, a red that defined red, a red that defied any other colour to be called red. So red it seemed to pulsate in the ray of sunlight from the window, even adding red and warmth to the ambience, so red it constantly drew her attention away from her cross stitch, a red so beautiful she wanted to reach out and caress it, which she did, and gave it another polish with a soft cloth, which she also did. Almost reverently she gently placed the red apple, back on the table, to regard it, contemplate it, Yes, even in a way, worship it, she thought. The red apple had so much of her attention, it was almost the centre of her being, her universe, at the moment.
She studied the red apple with her eyes, it beckoned her, absorbed her, fascinated her. Apart from the red, its shape is also unique she thought. It can not be mistaken for anything else, it is round like a ball, but it is not. After all there are all sorts of balls and they are all the same shape, round, apart from an odd few. She giggled to herself as a naughty thought about balls crossed her mind, apart from men’s ones that is. She smiled, but this apple has its own shape, it is different from the apple next door, but they can’t be mistaken for one another, or anything else. It is uniquely apple shaped, and each apple is subtley different. So it is a sphere, a ball, a heart, all of those yet none of those. Apple shaped indeed.
The apple had come from her next door neighbour, he was a keen gardener, they were talking in his garden when the apple had drawn her to it. Shining in the sun, morning dew still upon it, it had glistened and winked at her, like some Christmas tree ornament. Perhaps that was the original inspiration for those glass ornaments. Apples. This apple was like no other she had ever seen, red, all over red, one shade of red from top to bottom, just red. Her neighbour had explained, it was a very old breed, a Winesap, he had grafted it onto the tree himself. Then he asked if she noticed anything different about the tree itself? She looked and gasped, the tree was beautifully umbrella shaped, laden with apples. But, one third of the tree had red apples, one third had golden apples, one third had green apples. All on one tree! But the apples themselves, were not like apples you see in the shops, but were all a single solid colour, no stripes, patches, variegations or variations. The tree itself was a positive delight. The man had seen that the apple took her fancy, so he picked it and handed it to her. If you like apples, you will love this one, he had said.
Once again she glanced at the red beacon on the table. She decided to eat her red apple. Putting her cross stitch to one side, she once again reverently picked the red apple up. Cupping it in her hands, she brought it up to her face, under her nose, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. The aroma, again so very subtle she thought, could only be described as apple. Warm apple. Sweet apple, definitely not cold, green sour apple. There was no smell like it, unmistakable, an apple. Not like perfumes that smelled like anything from old wine to a posy of flowers, this aroma was deliciously distinctive. You knew exactly what it was. Apple.
Now was the time, she took a bite. A big definitive bite. The apple released a portion with a muted cracking, crunching sound. Her mouth filled juices both self produced, and from the apple, the apple juice from this red apple tingled tantalisingly on her tongue, and around her gums and teeth, sharp and sweet at the same time, refreshing her taste buds, urging her to chew. As she lovingly masticated, the piece of apple in her mouth shrunk rapidly, it became mainly this marvellous taste in the form of juice, although the apple flesh was crisp, it was not hard, soon reduced to little except the tougher skin, which she also chewed and swallowed. She licked her lips to catch some of the juice that had escaped, opened her eyes and studied the now severely wounded red apple in her hands. She marvelled, the flesh was whitish translucent, she could make out the core of the apple, it was so translucent as to be almost clear, but what really caught her attention was the little, fine, red as the outside red, veins that travelled from the skin inwards towards the translucent core. She had never seen that before. Fascinating.
Giving herself to the moment, she sat back, relaxed, closed her eyes again to fully enjoy this gastronomic delight, continued to eat the red apple in her hand. Savouring every moment, she nibbled, bit, crunched, chewed and daintily licked her lips until most of the apple was gone. It did not take long.
Beth opened her eyes, checking. She leapt into the air, gasped, coughed, wretched, spat out the remnants of the beautiful, delicious, red apple. Bits of apple sprayed everywhere. Waving at her from the lovely red apple was part of a very wriggly whitish, greyish, creamish, fat worm, disgustingly obscene by both its appearance and presence, in what just moments prior, had been a very real treasure trove of delight.
Nauseated, Beth cleaned up bits of sprayed apple, hoping they also contained worm, too scared to check properly. She did not want to know she had eaten worm. Disgusted and angry, she put all of the apple parts that remained together in a bowl, then consigned them ignominiously, forcefully to the rubbish bin and slammed the lid down.
She thought, as she settled back into her chair, that appalling apple, just like life. When you eat a good apple, it looks good, it tastes good, is satisfying. Then it travels through your body, which rejects part of it, no matter how nice, how good, and turns it into cr*p.
So like life, you can enjoy the looking, the anticipation, even the doing which leads to satisfaction, then, eventually, it all turns to sh*t. The worm, well, that is the miserable bastard that likes to make things turn to sh*t before they have to.
Beth cleared her mind of these thoughts, and utterly disappointed and discouraged, continued with the needles and threads of her cross stitch.

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