My sweet jellybean,

I’ve just done it. I’ve just destroyed the fruit. Oh god. The humanity. I flipped it upside down and squashed it. It was unimaginably horrible. The evil, old and sour. The flies revolted and flew away. The strawberries were petrified and putrefied stones. The apple squashed open and leaked a golden fluid that smelled of bad vinegar. The whole thing was terrible. Ghastly ghastly stink that I feel has got on me got in me and I can’t lose it. I need to clean. I need to clean the bowl with bleach. I need to vacuum and dust and cover the apartment in first carpet cleaner, then Fabreeze, then some incense and candles. My stomach won’t stop flopping. I haven’t even managed breakfast yet and now I don’t think that I will. I can’t go out on my balcony. Not just yet. First I have to avoid the smell of ripe evil but I also need to avoid the inquisitive and much put-upon neighbors seeking out the source of the stinking stench.

I’ve washed my hands raw.

Now, I must confess, I am as misguided as any perfectionist. And against all better judgment and advice, I redoubled my conviction to this commitment, to this project, to this concept even though it was clearly wrong from the start. I have a habit, as with all doom, tragedy, and misery, of seeing my mistakes all the way through.

But I will suffer my fruit no longer. My fouling fruit has made me foul. No griping grape am I, not rushing to shrivel, to wither, to resign. I am not the banana, quick to turn, quick to blacken. Rotten and ruined outside and in. I am not the nectarine, either. Not dried up. Not moulded. Not quietly, not wimpishly destroyed. Not even the well-shelled orange, resilient at first, slow to turn, slow to give up the ghost, now at last joined in putrefaction, bruised, spotted, rotted.

I am giving up this funk. I am giving up this foul. Yes, Time will have at us all, but I am not yet plucked. Not nearly.

Meanwhile, I promise, no more fruit.

SS