Sunday, an Attic Room

This is a bit of writing. Enjoy :)

Mid afternoon in your attic room feels static. There is no sound from outside, just the occasional creak of the house as it adjusts itself for comfort. If I look out of the tiny window, I might discover that we are adrift in the Pacific ocean.

I am lying on my back on your bed, reading an out of date weekend guide. You get up and ask me if I would like a piece of fruit. There is a visit to your sister’s place between us and dinner, so I say yes, I would like a satsuma please. I noticed a particularly big and yellow one in the fruit bowl downstairs. You grin, standing half in, half out of the doorway, stooping slightly because the door is really meant for a child. Your hair is short and fluffy; it sticks up in funny places where it has not yet settled into a style. When the woman in the barber shop asked me if I was going to miss you, I cried. It was down to your shoulders when we met. It was down to your shoulders yesterday, and smelled like lemon and tea tree.

You return with a plate. My satsuma is there on the side, accompanied by a selection; sliced melon, a banana, and a sharon fruit. Neither of us has tasted a sharon fruit before. It’s yellow and shiny. Fits in the palm of my hand. It looks like a fat tomato, but harder to the touch, like the plastic fruit thats manufactured for coffee tables. It doesn’t look like a Sharon fruit. Or a Claire fruit, or a Janice fruit.
You pluck off the green top and try to peel it with your fingers. I peer into the hole; the inside is wet and fleshy.
‘Gross. I don’t want to eat it. Rob said it would be like an apple inside.’

The television is showing the Moto GP. Stoner is in the lead. Rossi is close behind.

We cut it in half. It’s juicy and full of little stringy veins. You sniff at it cautiously before taking a bite.
‘It tastes like a pear. Lot like a pear.’
I have a go. It’s not like a pear at all. It smells strange, sort of yeasty, and tastes like a mango.
‘It’s like a mango. A weak, mushy one.’
‘I suppose it is.’
We sit curled together on the sofa, with the plate between us and the race in front of us whining on a twelve inch television screen.