-The Way to Peel an Apple-

Step 1 Wash your hands

Janus plucked the stem first like it was a show, a way to mourn publicly, the only way. This was to be similar to the way a gust of wind closes a door when you're watching it happening. And while it takes 13 milliseconds for a door to slam, roughly 18 mph if it hits the door like a coliseum. And you're thinking, “this is happening” this door-slamming-apple-peeling-business. She had practiced it this way yesterday and the day before. She wanted to get it just right for the Thanksgiving dinner next week. She stood there at the kitchen sink, bent over, with elbows resting on the basin counter top, her palms cupping her eyes, her ring and middle finger parted slightly to see the stem being pushed by the stream down the garbage disposal.

Step 1.5 Choose your instrument.

Her husband committed suicide a year earlier, the day before Thanksgiving. He was Riche Rough, a failed non-fiction writer who published under R.R. He always expected life owed him something, that his life story was something to be told. The truth was Riche grew up on the east side of Chicago in a suburb with his step mother. He blamed his inability to fully love on his mother, who drove off one night when he was 12, not to return until his 30^th birthday, in which she asked for money to reduce the appearance of varicose veins. Had they - mother and step mother - done something innately wrong? Gave him one less green bean, beat him with a switch, worked until morning? Whatever it was, it was their fault. He swore that he could not fully; as he kept saying that when he got drunk, the word fully, he could not fully love. And Janus would slice his throat in her mind when he would act like this. He was charming at one point, early in their relationship, when he would shave and dab cologne to meet her at The First Place, a dingy delicatessen, known for their truffle pate, wet salads, and an ostentatious parmigiana menu (eggplant, tofu, veal, sweet potato, chicken, meatball, asparagus). Riche always ordered a plan American style bologna on white bread and she never asked why try something new. She would try a paring knife today; wondering where the vegetable peeler had disappeared to.

Step 2 Hold the apple in one hand and the knife in the other. Starting at the top, cut until you're just below the skin.

Janus moved this way around the couch. Careful, almost like a dance holding the broken remnants of her knickknacks on a lap tray, the Victorian cherry curio cabinet laying defeated at her side; and corners splayed, exposing carpenters glue. She couldn't recall what events lead her to this moment; they just played over in her mind without recognition, a winding of cassette tape, slow and numb with a fingernail in the reel holes; all 565 feet of it, like a marquee, the letters backing up 1.75 inches a second without the second in her mind. She saw herself pushing the curio over, watching the glass collide with the end table edge and knocking off the lamp.  She moved back into the kitchen, sliding her lap tray of knickknacks; everything hot air balloon: patches and pins, tins, decals, blown glass miniature replicas, ornaments, a 3D crystal sculpture, and a mug. All the breakables, broken, the mug in fifths. She had  picked through the broken glass alright, valeting one sentiment over the other. Nicking herself in the process, Janus brought her mouth to her wound, sucked on a glass shard, stubborn just below the skin.

Step 3 Twirl the apple until you've cut away all the skin from top to bottom.

The time had come; Thanksgiving. The guests were arriving in pairs; the formalities (hi. hi. how are you . good, how are you. good. glad to be here. glad of you to make it.), the removal of light jackets and scarves, the doorway greetings of  pumpkin bars, chocolate tarts, pecan pie, roll cake, and cream cheese Napoleons. But, nothing apple. This was, to Janus's surprise, a relief. She had managed to produce a semi-appetizing apple pie. This was the first year without Riche, and there were tight lipped sentiments, extended condolences. And she took them gracefully. But, the saying of sadness wasn't what she was interested in. She wanted to make something so sad into a pie you could touch and tighten; its doughy crisp cross top perfectly aligned and symmetrical. Was there a bigger plan for the pie, Janus wondered, like wringing out a worn dish towel; dirty water clean water. It doesn't matter she thought. It's still a towel. 

My short short above got published a few months ago in The Driftwood Review. Check it out!