Fruit on the Table

A story about some fruit on a table.

There’s some fruit on the table. Apples, pears, a bushel of grapes, maybe an orange, maybe a peach or apricot, maybe a ripening plum. Some of the fruit is piled up in a bowl, and some of it, two or three of the fruits, maybe, or maybe four or five of them, are strewn out across the tablecloth, which is white, or maybe pale yellow, or dark blue. The bowl is earthenware, ceramic, maybe glazed, a muted color, an ordinary size, or maybe larger or smaller than ordinary, but not by very much. Its shape is more or less circular. The fruits piled inside come up above the rim, just a little bit, in a lumpy jumble that breaks up the clean lines and solid forms of the bowl and the table. The fruits strewn on the tablecloth, meanwhile, are spread out enough that each one is distinct from the others, but not so much so that they’re no longer in conversation with each other; they are not isolated on the expanse of the tablecloth like castaways adrift on the open sea. There is a wall directly behind the table, which is pitted and weathered and pockmarked, like a wall in an old country farmhouse, and is painted pale yellow or beige or bright red. It is not painted white. Perhaps, in fact, there is not a wall behind the table at all, but instead a large curtain, or a type of drop-cloth, one which is dyed an autumnal color, dark green or rust brown, perhaps, even though it’s late spring, or maybe early summer. There is not nothing behind the table, though. There is not only darkness or emptiness or a distant horizon. The weather is warm, or maybe slightly crisp, slightly cooler than usual for this time of year. Certainly it is not humid, in any case, and the air has that particular freshness commonly associated with the arrival of spring. At this time of year, the windows can still be safely left open without fear of harassment from flies or mosquitoes, and so they have been left open, letting in the whispering breeze and the trills of songbirds outside, which are maybe perched on tree branches, or maybe electrical cables, or maybe the roof of a barn or a shed. There are other animals outside, as well, snakes and rabbits and mice, maybe large, brown dog asleep on a porch, or a black cat curled up on a pile of straw. These animals, however, cannot be heard through the window, although they are out there, looking, breathing, smelling, moving, thinking. A wide yellow rectangle of sunlight, however, does come in through the window, and throughout the day this rectangle will creep imperceptibly from the stone floor, which is very dusty, or maybe covered in bootprints, or maybe just recently swept clean, up the side of the table, over the fruit strewn about and the fruit in the bowl, onto the wall, or maybe the curtain, and, finally, onto the low, unadorned ceiling, where, already elongated, it will slowly stretch itself out further and further, until it fades into night. Right now, though, it’s late morning, or maybe just past noon, or maybe just a bit later, and the light is just now shining on the fruit on the tabletop, and throwing their shadows onto the wall, or maybe the curtain, behind it. The fruit, recently washed, still glistens with moisture. You can hear the dripping of the tap in the kitchen, which is old, like the rest of the house, and can never quite be fully shut off, coming from somewhere behind you, or maybe ahead of you, a steady drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, a sound like you might hear at the beginning or end of your life. Right now, though, that is not where you are. You are here. You are nowhere else. There’s some fruit on the table. Apples, pears, a bushel of grapes, maybe an orange, maybe a peach or apricot, maybe an overripe plum.