Have apple pie with me

TW: cannibalism

You have beautiful skin you know. Our skin has a way of being endless in the sense that you can never quite locate an edge to jump off of. There is no hem to find. God was very ingenious with that. I wonder if he did it so we couldn’t peel each other like bananas. I wonder if he knew we might like to.

Are you religious? Or are you spiritual? You know a lot of young people these days, I hear them talking, about how they don’t believe in religion. That it is corrupt, deceitful and other vile things. They say we should open our eyes, break our chains and believe as they do in spirituality, which is the true and free path. Personally I think that just sounds like religion but I don’t judge what anyone thinks, it is your God given right and freedom to do and think as you please. There may be repercussions, even negative ones, but you can still do as you wish before the arrest and judgement. I happen to be very religious, I think Sunday school did its work right on me and I like the pattern, the ritual of church.

I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this. You’re wondering because this isn’t a therapy session and I’ve tied you to that rather uncomfortable chair while I’m standing here doing meal prep. You’re wondering why you can’t move or feel anything below your neck and why you’re missing your leg. Well, you will understand eventually, there is no need to worry, my dear. Now excuse me while I go grab some carrots from my garden.”

He walked towards the door, grabbed the knob then stopped himself and turned around to face her.

“I’m sorry, it seems I left my manners on the chopping board. It would be very rude of me to leave you here in total silence,” he said as he walked towards the music system. “Now I don’t know what you like in terms of music but there’s this German band I discovered that I really love. So how about that? They call themselves Milky Chance. Let’s see… Stolen Dance? No… Here, let’s hear Flashed Junk Mind.”

He pressed play on the song, smiled at her contently and then walked outside. He was gone only a few minutes and came back holding some fresh carrots. He washed them then turned off the music just as the song was ending.

“Did you miss me, dearie?

Now where was I? Oh yes! Religion. So as I was saying, I loved Sunday school. Do you know the story of the fall of man? Don’t worry I’ll tell it to you anyway. It’s found in Genesis, right after the creation story. So God told man… and woman, they could eat the fruit of any tree in the Garden of Eden except the tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of knowledge. If they ate from it, they would surely die. Now a couple of verses later, the woman, here called Eve, met the serpent and with very little convincing ate the fruit. I think it was so easy to convince her because she may have been suicidal. I mean they were told they would die and she still ate it. I can’t imagine only having one other person to talk to, who by the way is busy most days just naming things, and is who you’re married to by default. She never even got to choose, maybe his eyes were too close together and she wasn’t into that. Or he was a one-minute man, I mean people have killed themselves for less is all I’m saying. In any case, I digress. She saw the fruit was good and desirable and she ate it and then; somehow roping the poor guy into a suicide pact, gave it to the man too. Their eyes were opened and they realized that they were naked.

Now all this made me start to think a lot about forbidden fruit. This was made worse by the first time I had sex. They said it was forbidden if you were not married but frankly speaking, it was mind blowing, I think compounded by the fact that we were told not to. Or the fact that Sister Agatha and I did it in the confession booth. In any case, after this I decided to keep sampling new fruit. Which brings us to why you’re here with me. I wanted to try something new for lunch. It’s actually almost ready. We can both find out why people are forbidden from eating each other’s flesh. I’ve always thought it’s because we taste so good, so in the interest of trying to avoid extinction, some guy said it wasn’t allowed. We’ll find out together, with some rice and veggies to keep us healthy and some beautiful red wine. Let me serve and put the apple pie in the oven so we can have it for dessert.

Don’t look so mortified. I’ll be here with you and I’ll feed you so you don’t miss out on the delicious meal. In fact, why don’t I tell you about my favorite book while we eat? It’s called ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde. It’s about sin and the most perfect personification of it on flesh, well actually on a painting. I see a lot of myself in one of the characters, Lord Henry Wotton. I like to think I have just the same sharp understanding of life and the harsh realities of it and that I actually have found ways to enjoy them.

By the way, this is delicious. I’d say I just created a masterpiece here and the Worcestershire sauce really has given it that extra bit of flavor I was going for, and that broccoli just the perfect crunch. I really did put all my love into the making of this, I think you can tell. Here, have a taste.”