An apple a day

She looked over at him and gave a silent look of reproach. He saw the look; he always saw the look. He asked her “What?” And she told him, “I don’t think that apple’s good.”

“This apple?” he replied as he held out a deep red apple in his left hand. “Yes”, she told him, “that apple. I don’t think it’s good”

He looked at the apple in his hand; turning it over and over, then he looked at her. “And are you Johnny Appleseed now; you know so much about apples?”

She looked him in the eye and told him “maybe I’m Janie Appleseed”

He scoffed oh so slightly; then slowly deliberately brought the deep red apple to his mouth and took a generous bite out of it.

She rolled her eyes with a hint of disdain, then turned away and started walking toward the group of apple trees that they had discovered several days ago on a supply/scavenging run. He was reluctant to call the grouping of trees an orchard because there were really only 3 trees in this field off of the deserted roadway, and he didn’t know if so few trees constituted an orchard.

He was chewing on the apple for several seconds as he contemplated whether the trees were an orchard or not; when a thought popped into his head. I don’t think this apple’s good. He looked over to where his love was nearing one of the larger fruit trees and instead of spitting the apple out; which would certainly alert her that she was correct, he turned about and tilted his head towards the ground so that he could open his mouth and let the mealy apple pieces fall from his mouth to the ground.

He dropped the bitten fruit to the ground and quickly walked over to where she was examining branches to see which held the best fruit.

She turned to him when he arrived and asked “where’s your apple?”

“Oh I dropped it” he told her, at which point she simply smiled a cute smile and pointed at a branch that was laden with promising looking fruit.

“I think those apples are good” she offered. He told her “I saw a ladder by that empty shed back there”,

he turned to go retrieve the ladder and added, “I’ll get it and grab those good ones. See if you can find more good ones because you promised to bake me a pie”

He did the lion’s share of the cooking; he had done so even before the world went away. It was just something that he liked to do. He experimented with ingredients whenever possible; but that was getting tougher, what with the whole apocalypse situation. He was actually on his 101^st different recipe/preparation for his stockpile of SPAM. Don’t knock it; it’s got it’s own key!

The one thing that she did do in their kitchen was bake. She did that one thing like a champ. So when he told her he had spotted the fruit trees the other day; she immediately promised to bake him a pie if they collected the fruitful bounty. So here they were in the near orchard doing just that thing.

He jogged back to the empty shed and was rewarded with a sturdy looking vintage ladder. He dragged it back to the first tree and got busy placing the ladder and climbing for the fruit as she was on to the next tree, scouting for more fruity deliciousness.

As he was plucking the apples from their branch, she came to the base of the ladder and told him “that second tree doesn’t seem so good but that last tree has a buttload of good ones.”

“Buttload?” he asked. “Is that the preferred nomenclature?”

She offered to him, “that’s what Janie Appleseed calls it”. “Babe”, she asked, “what kind of apples do you think these are?”

“Dammit Janie, I’m a survivor, not a botanist!”, he blurted. She smiled; she always smiled when he made a Star Trek reference. He continued with “you’re the expert Janie, you tell me what kind of apples they are”.

She thought a moment and stated “I declare these apples to be Granny Smith apples!”

He furrowed his brow and said “I thought Granny Smith apples are green?”

“Silence!”, she said in an imperious voice. “you said so yourself that you are no botanist; and so you will have to defer to my judgement”

“Granny Smiths they are then my love” he agreed with her. In his head he thought they are probably something like red delicious; but as long as she bakes my pie, it’s all good.

She watched from the ground as he grabbed the last of her chosen apples and asked “babe, why do you always bring that gun with you?” She liked to ask him that several times a week just to hear his off the wall answers.

“Leprechauns!” he blurted out.

“Leprechauns” she asked, “Really? Why on earth would you need a gun for Leprechauns?”

he looked at her with a very serious face and told her, “they have that pot of gold”

“so?”, she asked. To which he replied “you don’t think they’re just going to give it away”

she smiled and told him “I’ll help you with that ladder on the last tree; there’s probably at least a dozen good ones over there”

Together they quite easily man handled the ladder to the last tree and it only took him about 10 minutes to gather the rest of the “Granny Smith” apples that she had chosen.

As they made their way back to the solar car, he noticed the darkening sky. Several miles to the east the cloudy sky had taken on an eerie greenish yellow hue. They both knew that most likely meant an impending tornado. She liked to call them cyclones or water spouts even when the storms were over land. He really did think that she did that just to bug him. That was actually fair enough since he did more than his fair share of things with the sole purpose of “bugging” her. Lucky for him; they had been together for several years before the world went kaput! And they had been in love for most of that time. Back when there were still other people and a few of his friends joked that he was “whipped”; he would always just tell them with a smile - “I’m happy”.

He remembered when it started with a numbered virus from across the globe. He was no conspiracy theorist; but he did think that the press blew it out of proportion, possibly to take the public’s attention away from the train wreck of a presidency that was going on at the time.

As it turned out; the numbered virus did for nearly the entire human race. They hadn’t seen another living soul for years.

Lucky for them; an apple a day keeps the Doctor away.