Fresh Apple Pie

“Fresh apple pie has always had a special place in my heart.” The words slipped through my lips with more air than words. I kept my head down was I spoke. The stained baseball cap helped to keep the light from my eyes. I pulled more air into my lungs with a long slow draw. With a slow motion, I lifted my head up high enough for me to catch the look on the man sitting across from me.

He was a relatively young man. He didn’t make eye contact with me. Instead he just sat in the chair opposite me. No expression on his face. His clothes seemed to consist of a dark shirt and dark blue jeans.

I knew what he wanted, and I was ready to tell him everything. It was the least I could do anyways. He was part of this story now even if he didn’t know it. And as a character, he needed to know his part.

“I’ll tell you what you want to know. Just remember that Apple pie was always special to me.” The words came out with a little more emphasis this time. He didn’t seem impressed with my willingness to tell him everything, but I had to tell him now.

“I saw her three weeks ago and I had to go up and talk to her. She was wearing a little yellow dress that brought out the perfect depth to the skin. She smiled at each person that she passed. When she smiled at me, I smiled back. It was then that I knew I had to know who she was.” The smallest of smiles crept onto my face and I lifted my chin just long enough to make sure it was visible to him. Then my face dropped again. “I made myself known to her and we were soon sitting down across from each other, much the same way we are now. I was telling her stories and she told me hers.” I shook my head. “Then we parted ways.”

I knew that there wasn’t much time to go through all the ins and outs of the following days, so I decided to cut to the information that I sure that he wanted to know.

“We confided in each other and I learned about all her feelings towards you.” I shook my head again. “It was then that I told her that I could help her and wanted to meet her in the apple orchard.” I lost track for a moment and fell into silence.

“Oh, how I have a special place for fresh apple pie.” The words again came out airy. I gave my head a quick shake to get the cobwebs out and put me back on track.

“So I went to the orchard ahead of her as we didn’t want to attract any attention. I sat with a basket at a base of a tree for an hour and enjoyed the smell of the fruit that fell on the ground. Most people think that rotting fruit as being foul, but I think it is close to the smell of apple pie.”

“She showed up and We started to walk. The orchard seemed to go on for miles. We talked about her troubles and most of them, but not all, no, not all, seemed to be about you.” Another shake of my head, much slower this time. “She had such a soft spot for you. And she knew just how bad you were for her and she still stayed with you. At least until today.”

I stopped talking for a few minutes. The silence in the room was sickening. I waited for some type of response, but I got nothing. She told me that he was a tough man and I knew that now more than ever. There was something in the way he just sat there that made me feel more comfortable and ready to finish the story.

“We found a tree in the middle of the orchard that had some of the most beautiful Macintosh apples. I told her to wait and that this was the perfect tree. She tried to say that she had never picked apples before and wanted me to show her how to find the best ones. I obliged her and stared at the branches for a moment or two. I looked over at her and she had was half laughing at me. I smiled at her and gestured my submission to have her show me how it was done.”

I smiled only briefly thinking about how she stood in the fading sunlight and stretched out to reach a nice apple. Her silhouette flowed gracefully through the white dress that she wore. I smelled the hot perfume mix with the putrid apples on the ground by her feet and it made the most perfect smell of fresh apple pie.

“Apple pie.” I began to feel the sadness of what was happening, and a single tear streamed down my cheek. “I truly did love the smell of apple pie. But let me finish and then I will be finished.”

With a glance up I almost expected to have the man coming at me, but he was unyielding.

“I watched as she reached for the fruit and as she reached, I picked up the basket and started over to her. She stood on her tip-toes was putting all of her attention into grabbing the apple. It was then that I used all my force and weight and sliced as deep as I could into her neck with the machete that I had hidden in the picnic basket. It didn’t go all the way through, but it was enough to puncture her windpipe and kept her from screaming. Even if she did it would have only been a second before the blood filled her lungs anyway.”

I tightened my body and spit out the warm fluid that was filling my mouth. There should have been some form of anger that would have caused a typically man to burn with rage. There was nothing. I stood up from the chair which I was sitting and slowly strode over to the man. I gave him a push on the cheek and he fell hard to the floor. A broken wine bottle stuck in between his shoulder blades. In the background, a sharp, silent beeping began to go off.

“Ah, it looks like it’s all done. There’s few things I like more than fresh apple pie.” And I retired to the kitchen to retrieve the delicious tart.