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The Forbidden Fruit

Erica Plumes Secret Fortune

By ParisPublished 3 years ago 11 min read
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The Forbidden Fruit
Photo by Ben Elhadj Djelloul Mohamed on Unsplash

The service at this hospital is always despicable! Grandma has pruned to a brittle pile of bones, almost only defined by a familiar scent. But even her gentle Oakwood aura is being consumed by a fragrance fit for a sewer every day. I fear I may be crushing her skinny little fingers, so I let go and face the entrance to her room, awaiting a nurse or doctor to pounce on. If they don’t show up, my hand will be forced—forced into chaotic discourse!

“Mmmm…are we contemplating another episode, Erica?”, comforts me from beneath a weak grin

My heart flying out of my mouth I scream, “Grandma!”, and leap into her arms

Our routine was seamless from here, we would exchange stories detailing the subtle niceties of our days. The snow, the lovely cars, and the books we promised to read for our own private club. Sometimes, if she weren’t drowsy, Grandma and I would write reviews in this little black book I bought to create recipes for her soups. Nurse Molly would derive a secret pleasure from telling me I was to leave at 5 on the dot and I would pack up slowly to preserve as much time as I could. Before I left, Grandma never forgot to call after me and say:

“How is Veronica?”, Flatly groaning. Staring up at the ceiling

Flipping through my memory eventually I bleat: “…I’m sorry?”

“Your mother, sweetheart” light chuckling surrounding her response

“Oh! Mum’s been talking about you a lot. She even showed me this old frilly thing you forced on her for prom” my glow is involuntary as I anticipate cheer to reflect on grandmas face

But she lays there, deflated and visually exhausted. I’m still quivering from the assault of January’s brutal onslaught, Grandma examined me, and her face only reflects heartache.

“Isn’t today Veronica’s day off, Ery?”

Only the weight of my heart can be felt, and so I decide we won’t do this again. As if gravity threatens to release its heavy foot, I secure my grandmother in her blankets worried that this mangey wool the nurses scraped from lost and found would scratch away at her skin in the night. I must get her some new bedding. And with a gentle press of my lips, I christen my visit with a goodbye kiss and leave without a word.

Over the next two weeks this would continue. Snow would grow so tall that my 5-mile walks to the hospital left my fingers and toes red and cracked, they were like sandpaper from the inside. One day I hugged Grandma with my arms attached to my hips while my body vibrated me back to a reasonable temperature and sometimes, we’d snuggle in the cosy cocoon of that new bedding I swore to bring to her. In hindsight, that was all easy because what came after wasn’t heroic struggle but death. Mum spent months locked away in her tomb and dad collected dust waiting for her to leave. Arguments weren’t warzones of passion but vast stretches of fatigue where any exchanges were scripted; the sheer mention of modernity drove mum back upstairs into her tomb. And although, it didn’t matter to me, Grandma left us nothing. But that began to matter the whole household more and more every day. Dad would become feral when the door knocked growling ‘is that fucking vulture here already?’, nervously picking at the threads from his trousers underneath his split and distraught nails.

I studied the maze that grew strong in our miserably unkept garden. Getting lost for hours at a time. During my extensive excavations I would scribble names I made up for the different plant life in mine and Grandmas little black book. A Trufflestomp are these diva types with these pastel pink feathers atop a fluffy bush that reminded me of a flamingo. The Mush Mush Daisies are bloated things… despite my greatest efforts, I can barely keep them alive while they remained weary and unbothered with the rest of the maze. Poison Bluffs were self-explanatory and at the centre of the chaos was the mother, a healthy thick oak tree which hadn’t budged since I could remember drawing breath. Sometimes I would guide my fingers along these botched reviews, in our now reinvented little black book. Sometimes the spliced words we used to exact vengeance upon a particularly terrible book would only seem to spite me. And sometimes I would consider making the soups so I could eat with her one more time.

“That fucking vulture I swear to Go—….” My now skeletal father is rudely interrupted by a gaggle of coins and cash that tussle out of a worn plastic bag. Five others rest onto it.

“I think that was all I found…should we ration it? Perhaps pay Marvin to revitalise the house or the—or the garden!”, gooey nests of tree sap and wood chips resting beneath my fingernails

Immediately, I’m smacked with a peer of condescending judgement that morphs into disbelief which bleeds into conspiracy. Father’s eyes sit in black recesses below his eyebrows and his cheeks are now two pointy arches on either side of his face but while he conspired, the skeleton tapped its bony extensions onto its temple. An animated gesture far more emotive than I had seen in months.

“Where did you--?” Fathers brows pricked up in concern

I’m beaming again “The oak”

“And you swear every scent is on this table?” extending a bony antenna directly in my face

“Yes”

“I’m going to cut it down” decided the lanky fossil, a single finger raised

My glow dims in favour of a rising fever red “You’re joking. Gran—”

“Do not lecture me on Vivian, Erica! She tried, I’ll admit, but even all the gatherings in the world wouldn’t have given her a large enough audience to make fools of me and your mother!”

Alas, I can’t t hold onto anger for awfully long so instead I despair, “She didn’t do that…she looked after us”

Fathers skull span around reintroducing me to the filthy pig stie around us. Towers of crusty plates rise from the sink, tongues of wallpaper hanging down from the fatigued and discoloured walls and the ever-growing garden that for an unadjusted eye now appeared as a cluttered mass of untamed expansions. Then his skull clumsily swung back to hear what I had to say.

“….”

“Actions make a thought final. Re-evaluate what your beloved Grandmother thought of you”

Father launched into the air rounding up each bag of loot without letting a dime hit the floor. ‘Veronica!’, he yelled upwards as he climbed the staircase to their bedroom, the chipper tune of the loot in hot pursuit.

I hadn’t really questioned what Grandma thought of me. Did I smother her?

Three days flew over father’s head. He would skip his bones about carelessly announcing ‘it was about £20,000’ or ‘it must’ve found us!’. He overshared with just about anyone with a pair of working ears. It wasn’t long before Francois, father’s financial advisor, had casually tipped off a couple gentlemen from the pub about “the Plume’s extreme wealth”. Soon after father would return home wearing silly suits and designer jeans, snatched from “Vinny’s” secret stash, every fortnight. An investment on Vinny’s part I assume. And it was at these gentlemen proceedings that father profoundly changed. For example, whenever he would inhale a fat cigar, his nose looked like a chimney and his eyes wouldn’t water; composure father could not maintain in his previous life. Above all else, losing humanity granted father a great poker face. Mother spent three days “clipping” fathers’ wings when she wasn’t out in the clouds herself, seeking refuge in her imagination, I think. Miriam, mother’s new ‘friend’, would treat them to expensive trips to the market where mum would pay, and Miriam would complain about…well anything. Mum had saved from work prior to Grandmas death so she could afford to splurge.

I believe Miriam once said: “Your whatever’s out front could do with a clipping”. Those ‘whatever’s’ were looked after by me and according to the black book, they were called Count Calories for their chunky nature.

Today, I spent the day trying on clothes in mums’ room with mum and Miriam. A truly devilish pair.

“Hmmm, I’d say you keep the bun, ditch the dress”, flapped the bloated lips

My eyes dart to mum, hoping she’d retort and then disappointedly roll over to Miriam

“Mum didn’t say anything…”

“Oh, when your besties you develop, kind of, telepathic qualities. My dad’s actually a magician in Florida. And you know Vegas? USA, beautiful place, not a person, well my cousin is actually a medium there, so the apples just keep hanging from the tree, really. I’ll prove it. Look…uhm, Ronnie, how do my pours look? Bet she’ll say fab!”, Jazz hands then blossomed glamorously besides each side of Miriam’s face

Mum keeps trying on jackets in the mirror. None of them fit and one particular jean jacket she held captive for months with frills she once reviewed as “too similar to my ugly prom dress” drew tears from her eyes. I wasn’t so sure why she kept it. Most of mum’s clothes didn’t fit her anymore but, in the vanity, her silky dresses floating away from her collar bones appeared, almost, purposefully majestic. Mum hadn’t had purpose in a long time.

Picking at mum’s bones with her comically elongated fingernails, Miriam barked,

“Ronnie…. Ronnie! Ronnie!”

YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

Following this torturous war cry was the commotion of leaves scurrying to the ground. And then a thump. Leaving Miriam quaking, I sprang over to the window to see a stump forcefully separated from its body. Miriam realised her only audience member had drifted off toward the ruckus and swiftly pursued it as if it were her idea.

“Hey, Ronnie, come see what Virgil did!” the duck tattled “It’s fugly. I always said it was fugly. Remember at Eugene’s last week, you had that fugly lobster prepared, the one that looked exactly like my cousin? Would you believe from that exact moment I could just sense something; you know?”

I flew down the stairs, 2 seconds flat, prepared to pounce on anyone! On my way to the back door I passed, the exhausted walls, the faulty towers of plate fungi and headed toward the jungle maze in our back garden. Ahead of me was a giant untamed gate of tangled greenery. Before I could butcher myself grinding through, however, father waltzed out from it shielding his eyes with his arm. In the new path created my father stood, a tall, brittle skeleton. His pinstripe double breast ironed to shiny metal plate armour while his frequently abused feet suffocated in a pair of glossy loafers, finished with a completely pure obsidian coat. Atop his head, sprouted unhealthy clumps or greasy webs, held together by heaps of jell. My feet planted to the ground, I was a proud, yet furious statue stood before my father.

He leant into my face “Veronica’s upstairs” he mocks me while practically passing through me to get back to the house

When father was fatigued, he sought sadism which paralyzed me. And I wonder: if he could abandon himself; did he love us at all? Once he was far enough away from me, I spun around to face him

“You are a monster!”, and with that my body held a wild tremolo until I could continue “You watched this house grow weak and ate it’s heart; a truly greedy, depraved creature and with my trust, I gave you everything!”

Father stopped. “For this family, I’ve gone blind in damp caves, digging and digging, only to leave with broken fingers. Vivian--!”

“—Loved us! Loved me…”

Father turned. “THEN LEAVE” His eyes returned briefly, now reddened and moist “If I can take you no further—And Veronica is nowhere to be found—Then what is left for you here!?”

“You should be”

He just stares at me.

“Why did you cut it down?”

BOOOOMMMMM

Beyond the maze, we watched as vines, trunks and roots mounted the house, slithering through the windows and wrapping themselves around it until we caught a minor nausea. Every window was violated until our home tilted to one side then twisted like gum in the vegetations mighty grasp. Familiar plant life inhabited some of the spines of particularly thick roots, it was the Mush Mush Daisies, prepared to avenge their mother as for the first time I watched their petals release glowing spores from their bellies. Like lanterns the spores orbited the house pulsating with life. Truffelstomp’s were swaying, mourning in a distressed rhythm. All the other plants from my black book came here to grieve. Even the Count Calories oozed a thick pink plasma, that dripped over our Arbour, corroding the damped wood. Then my face turned ghastly as the devastating realisation had just arrived. Mother was in there.

“Father…”, as if for the last time my eyes were ready to vomit tears

But he doesn’t look at me “She’s not dead, Ery. Go round to the—Well the front. I’ll go inside and find her—Was she still in her room!?”

I wipe my eyes then shake my brief panic and say, “Yes but what if—”

“I’ll get out, Erica—go!” And he shot off into the chaos, the house no longer our home

For the first 5 minutes, my parents weren’t strong enough. And for the next 5 minutes, father wasn’t strong enough. I was hugging the ground, overcome with realities far too heavy to stand up to. Then the sunset arrived, golden brown glitter shimmered along the edges of the plant family still twisting and stretching the house. They were oblivious to the suns retreat because they know time, now, wasn’t a certainty for them. I remember that. If I was correct, then they also knew that the mother oak couldn’t feed the Mush Mush Daisies. It was her privilege to love them but her job to care for them, after all, she was only a tree.

grief
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