Apples and Oranges

“Don’t you remember?”

I really love my girlfriend. I tell myself that every time she begins a conversation with me without any sort of preamble or set up that makes sense. Michelle is a beautiful woman who is also a talented teacher, so-so dancer and cook, and a wonderful talent with karaoke and sports. But she really needed to work on her timing. And her tact.

“Lewis?”

“I’m still here. Head hurts like a bastard, but I am here. What…?”

“You really don’t remember what happened to you?”

I was lying on a large field of grass that did not look too familiar…at first. My head still hurt and I just wanted to have a large and very strong drink.

“Michelle, love of my loins, I was walking all by my lonesome, waiting to meet you, and then I woke up here.”

“That’s not all. You should look down.”

I was still on that large field of grass, looking up at her strained and nervous face. There was not much down to look at from my position, but I understood why she wanted me to see what was all around me.

Apples…and oranges.

“What the hell is this?”

“It’s you. You were surrounded by all this fruit when I ran over and tried to wake you up. You did not wake up right away and I thought that you were dead or something.”

Again, I loved my girlfriend very much.

“Or something?”

“Lewis, knock it off! I thought that you were hurt.”

Were those tears? Was she actually crying?

“Okay, I’m sorry. So sorry… But really, babe, I don’t remember anything at all. I just was standing here and then I was not really standing. And my head hurts. Did someone chuck an apple at me?”

Michelle has what some people might call a “resting bitch face” when she is done with someone or something. She had one on now as I stood up and looked at the orchard I found myself in. There were about a dozen apples and another dozen oranges around us, along with a white plastic bag that was held down by a few of them as the wind picked up. I felt a little cold, but did not respond to the change in temperature. It was her face that had all my attention.

“You really are the king of idiots sometimes, y’know that?”

“I prefer lord of lovers…”

“This is not funny. I found you lying on the grass and you had all this fruit around you and now they are talking about getting their revenge…”

Again, Michelle had the gift of holding certain key things back when they would have made your day easier.

“ ‘They’?”

“The merchants you stole from; the ones who keep getting ripped off.”

Now, maybe I should have been more patient with her, but I was getting cold and the sight of all that wasted fruit was beginning to annoy me. I still had my wallet and cellphone on me, but I could not recall buying any fruit or stealing from any merchant.

“Would you please tell me what is really going on?”

And that was when I heard it.

The best way I can describe it is…I felt it before I really heard it. It got under my skin and did nothing to help with the headache that was growing and developing a bad personality. But it was there, followed by an assault on my ears.

“Hear it?”

“How can I not hear it?” I was looking around for the source of it.

Oh, and I better explain what the space was like. The grass I was on was at the top of a hill that I knew pretty well. Looking down, you could see a baseball diamond, a running track that was perfect all season (at least they kept it clean), a recreation centre, and a waterpark for the kids in the neighbourhood. There were a few families out with their children, even with the change in temperature. But they were not the cause of the noise.

It was coming from behind me.

Again, I better explain. I walked down through the park to get home, coming through at the top of that hill after passing through the market.

Yeah…the market…

“That is for you.”

Michelle was not smiling about this. She knew that we had to meet at the park and I had told her that I would be there at such-and-such a time. But all of the other stuff she threw at me…

She was serious.

“Let’s go.” She took my hand, the moment I realized that my hand was hurting.

“Damn…ouch! What happened…?” I looked down at my left hand. When did I get that bandage? It was wrapped rather tight and I could see that it was pretty raw. I could feel it smarting under her grip.

“Sorry…I had to do it very quickly. They hurt you and I panicked when I saw the blood. Good thing I had these.” She took out some bandages from her handbag (Michelle, I really love you).

“But who…?”

“They did. They did that to you. You have to go.”

That sound I felt was growing into a sort of buzz in my brain.

“Okay, let me just pick this all up.”

Michelle was confused and angry (a common thing for her when she heard me say the wrong thing at the worst time). “Leave the damn fruit!” She kicked at an apple, sending it deep into the tree line.

“All right. Just cannot believe that this is all over something I did.”

“Mmmhmm…”

That was something I could have missed there. Michelle turned her head as she mumbled, looking down the hill as the plastic bag I saw was now free and floating past us and into the sky.

She was holding something back.

I let go of her hand.

“Michelle, baby…”

She stopped as I stared at her.

“It’s my fault, okay?”

The buzz was now a set of voices, footsteps and chants. There was nothing friendly behind us.

“They cheat us a million times in a million ways. Every single time I am in there, I feel like I am being grilled or tested by them. Damn stupid vendors.”

I knew that when she said, “them”, she was including her own father and mother. They had worked in the market for years, making friends with my family, inviting us to pick the best of their produce, introducing me to their strangely quiet daughter. She would not even speak to me when I walked home with her from school for the first time, even less so when her father saw us together. He was always grinning and affectionate with her; a million hugs that maybe lasted a little too long. She was so still.

Not so quiet now.

“We have to go.”

We both ran down that hill, hearing those footsteps pound and voices yell at us by name, with the occasional orange and apple flying past our heads. There was so much about that day I did not understand, but I could see that we would never be apart now. We had a lot to talk about.