Ariera

I find myself lying still in this lattice of thorns, the prickly tethers of what feels like worn rope press into my thick skin. I cannot feel my limbs, only the mass of my torso – I feel taller than before, as if some magical sculptor has stretched me thin, elongating my spine and flesh. The sky flickers – golden yellow fireworks! Oh, but they fail to melt back into the prior gloom, silent and comforting with its masking grimace of unknowingness. This 'Sun' shifts about tentatively, like a glowing ball on a rope swing, suspended above a jungle of apes, threateningly swiping with their great arms. The tapping of faraway footsteps pulses through me and my spiny bed. Perhaps it is some god, coming to rescue me from this dark doom? I shall call out to them – never have I felt more relieved to be in so light a presence when in this crushing black cave of disorientated souls.

My words seem to be muffled by a doughy matter smothering my mouth and airways.

Oh god, what is happening? My sad life will end prematurely after all. Yet, I can still follow my scattered thoughts, disturbed by this awful happening. Perhaps, if I endure my suffering and retain my mind, I can find a way of esca--

My thoughts, ubiquitous and brimming with fear are cut short by the instant dimming of the bright Sun above – a shadow of ill-fate steals my worst notions of terror from my screaming psyche and clasps its dark, deathly fingers (surprisingly fat and fleshy) around my soft frame. My curved chest tightens, my innards twist in the compression, but still am I unable to emit a scream of ashen agony from this inexplicable torture!

‘Ariera*! I have been looking forward to devouring your feathery flesh all day!’ booms a voice, piercing and peeling the air of silence.

Even before panic can diffuse into my veiny body, I immediately feel a sharp stinging on the crown of my head; the shadow’s claws have sunken into my case, like a farmer digging his spade into the hard ground during winter’s defiant months of chill. My head, rife with pain, throbs with heat. The stinging persists and stretches further down my body, my skin, peeling away, leaving my newly exposed flesh raw, white and burning.

I have no teeth to clench together, no eyes to squeeze shut, no hope to desperately cling to. Yet my external senses remain intact, and pulse the excruciating soreness through my nerves which glow threateningly from the sickening pain of this affliction.

Just after a thousand pinpricks stab at my mutilated exterior, inverted and bare, a foul feeling of moist ensnarement rasps through me; doughy bile in my spongy stomach arises; it pulps inside me, for it is unable to surface. Sharp knives rip into my flesh, scraping at my neck, my chest, my pelvis, until I feel a sudden lightness in the midst of this chilling disfigurement of my shredded body. My top half, now mashed into puréed carnage, has been ripped from me by the jaws of a monster!

I cannot resist, I cannot refute. All I can do is lie here, rolling away from the blood-thirsty chambers of an atrocious demon.







…and so is the fate of a banana.

* Ariera is the Latin name for the English word banana (a long, crescent shaped fruit that grows in bunches and has a soft, pulpy texture and yellow external skin when ripe)

Copyright © JRFB 2012

Rouge

I gaze at the fruit as she pulls at its soft skin, tearing it with her teeth which appear to glow a luminous white in contrast to the unforgettable bright reds and oranges as they ooze out.

What was once a pristine, spherical lump of softness is now a misshapen, ugly, mangled mess. She sucks at it - the innards being absorbed from one organism into another. But no matter how natural the process, this image before my eyes disturbs me. For nothing so lovely should be treated in such a dishonourable way. The fruit, (barely recognisable) seems to bleed small fragments of life in its desperate attempt not to prolong its own, but to begin the life of others. Only one escapes, as it glides down the chin of the oppressor, in one long slippery movement.

The others were not so lucky.

The fruit breathes its last breath and collapses in on itself, exhaling a sigh as juices protrude - from ripe, tender skin to a wrinkled, shrivelled husk; thus mirroring the lives of our own species. It is a very strange spectre; like watching a plump, new born baby with skin as soft and smooth as a pearl of the sea suddenly merge into the archaic, crippled old man it is destined to become after a lifetime of memories, wither away into the darkness from whence it came.

*

It no longer resists. The oppressor has won and celebratorily wipes her mouth with a handkerchief of the same white as her teeth. Horrified, she is taken aback when she catches sight of a dark red, clotting like blood as it seeps into the open pores of the handkerchief; the blood of her victim.

As she frantically rushes to the nearest pale of water, to inspect the damage done to her mouth - where the danger had begun - the one and only spawn of life from the fruit lies still on the damp earth. Silent; waiting. Waiting for Light to come, to appear from hiding and nurture its growth. The girl screams with hysteria as her blood-shot eyes spark after fearfully gazing at her mouth in the pale.

Dripping with cold, dark, sparkling blood, its smell is repulsive - like decrepit jagged metal rusting on the side of a deserted road. Although no one is around, the smell lingers, adding a weight to the air, hoping to intoxicate the next living man, woman, child, or fruit that has the misfortune to come across it.

The seed of life listens, but does no hear; it breathes but does not inhale; it grows, it flourishes, it lives. For it comes - even the darkness and dreariness of the commotion and horror cannot obstruct the pureness of nature's gift to our troubled world: Light.

Comforted by the warmth of Light, as if by instinct, the seed of Life stretches its roots down passed the screams of death and into the cool earth, embracing a chance for new life to begin.

The sounds of the girl are lost. Only nature can be heard now. The inculpable, pure shoots sprout from the spawn of the fruit, slowly curling and uncurling in euphoric replenishment. Energy is re-released back into the soil, the earth quivers with excitement as it soaks up the new Life. 

Much time may pass, yet still in the garden of men, although nature seems to be lost, the strong, tall steams; the broad thick leaves; the glorious, ripe red fruits all remain on the tomato plant - spawned from death. And not a single fruit from this plant of righteousness is to be harmed.

Copyright © JRFB 2012