Short Memoir 1

We’re sitting under an apple tree. The branches are so heavy with fruit that they are laying themselves on the ground barring us from any other potential pickers. An Indian family strolls jovially past lead by the grandmother who’s flowing orange sari is split on the side exposing her crinkled fleshy middle. Their legs are bright in the sun and we watch them glide next to us like a herd of floating elephants, exotic and mystical, carried through the heat upon the breath of their incomprehensible language. I lay back onto the dirt and stare up into my sister’s face. She has climbed a lower branch and is sitting on it biting into yet another apple and watching me. We aren’t speaking but we are smiling.

I gaze up into the tumble of branches and body parts, I am sticky with sweat and grateful for the shade. I close my eyes and am more content than I have been in months. I can tell that she feels the same and we continue to not-speak. I like it. I begin to cry, silently. I turn onto my stomach and pretend to play with the fallen apples, stacking them, building up an apple wall. An apple fortress. When I am done I have stopped crying and I turn back to face her. She is my exact likeness. We are identical. Monozygotic. “Freaks of Nature” as our father likes to say.

I look at her face and I don't tell her that I don't want her to leave me. I don't tell her that I need her and I don't tell her that I don't think I can make it without her.

Instead I say “I could stay in here forever. It feels like another world.” All around us is chlorophyl tinted. We are wrapped in mystical green silk.

“Fruitopia” She says.

“No” I say. “Fruitalatalata.”

“Hah. You are good.” She smiles.

I reach my arm up behind my head for another apple. She climbs a little higher and leans forward. She is looking for perfection. She tosses her apple core at a specific cluster knocking down three at a time. I watch them land and crawl over to collect them and pass them up to her. One still has a green leaft attached to its stem. It is a solid, deep, school house red. “This is the perfect apple” she says.

“You are good” I say. And I smile.