Fruit Holder

The words struck hard and deep. The expected mechanical reaction appeared quickly: tears, fear, an instant urge to pick up the phone and hear a soothing voice. Time, the great immortal nothingness within which I dwell. I perceive the great waves but for a brief moment…then, the fear kicks in and we journey back into bed, back under the covers, where I rest. Warm and cozy, but with an uneasy fragile tranquility. But the words stay, like an unusual taste upon my tongue, a new fruit, different than any others in the market.
Among wheelbarrows of apples, oranges, green grapes and promises of sweet, juicy refreshment…there is a lady, disguised as a man. She opens her coat and reveals the translucent spherical fruit. The size of cherries, they hang from two thin green threads, each strand hanging from her nipples like jeweled grapes from a vine. Within the small fruit, I see flashing pictures and flickering colors. Each little ball a world within itself, displaying its own show, its own version of reality. Faces morph from one to the other, colors blend and turn into futuristic vistas of silver and gold. I watch, I stand still before a dozen clear fruits projecting images above the flesh of a woman with a bearded face. The streets are crowded, housewives and young girls navigate the thin alleyways, doing their best to avoid collisions with other housewives at every turn. They carry bananas and fish, watermelons and household cleaners. None carry the clear flickering fruit. None look in our direction, none see a man-woman with an open red coat, revealing elongated breasts and strands of fruit universes. A glass coating seems to cover us. I feel no heat from the sun, no cool breeze of the ocean wind. There are people on the periphery of my attention, but there is no sound. No voices from moving lips, no barks from the roaming stray dogs, no cries from the many babies strapped to sturdy backs. The woman-man watches me, holds my eyes with her own. He looks up, into the direction of the would-be warm sun. The small fruits begin to synchronize…the various flickering lights and images slowly begin to all turn a delicate shade of blue.

They begin to pulse, slowly at first, but glowing faster, moving in more rapid intervals by the second. Light blue, dark blue, light, dark, faster and faster, the colors pulse interchangeably, become more ferocious and alive. Ta, Ta, TA...they move to an inaudible beat while the colors morph into an electric blue brilliance, the color moves so quickly it seems to be stagnate, one extended color of brilliance; but it vibrates with a radiance that has reached into the depths of my heart and pulled out the silent kernel that has been watching attentively.