What is the best kind of fruit? I ask myself this question on an almost daily basis.
If you ask me, the best kind of fruit doesn’t require a lot of work to be eaten. Some might say the raspberry. I don’t like those kinds of people. Raspberries are a false fruit. A kind of sinister scheme cooked up by bog farmers to spruce up their cranberry juices.
Cranberries get on my nerves as well. Why do they taste so bad? And why do they put them in so many juices? This must be some kind of conspiracy. Fifty years ago, cranberry farmers bought up acres of land from the U.S. government. Bogland, they called it. Finding that their barley crops could not grow, they had to find a suitable seed to plant.
Now, they have metric tons of cranberries that stink up storehouses the world over. What else are they going to do with them but stick them in our juice?
There are only two kinds of juices that matter: orange and apple. And even apple is pushing it.
Why do I want to drink the fruit equivalent of urine? It even smells like urine if you leave it out for two weeks on the window sill.
I used to know a man who spent all his day on his window sill. It was one of those big sills, that was trying to show off. He would open his windows and shout at the children when they came home from school. Most of them found other ways home and the man was forced to shout at squirrels when they came for his nuts.
He would keep large bags of nuts beneath the window sill. Said they got tangy in the sun. He should have tried cranberries.
If he grew cranberries instead of nuts, I bet he could have sold them all to the U.S. government and made a mint.
There are certainly too many juices in the market, if you ask me. I walked down an aisle once. I was looking for a new kind of foot ointment, since they haven’t made my brand since 1932. Every shelf was stocked with brightly-colored liquids. When I asked a man in an apron what I had stumbled upon, he said it was the juice aisle.
Most of them were cranberry juice. I never went back.
People ask me why I don’t peel oranges when I eat them. I tell them I paid for the entire orange and I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste 10-20% of it. Most people just peel the orange and through the rind on the ground. I’ve seen pigeons try to consume an orange peel, only to be met with disaster.
The same can be said of grape seeds. Used to be, you’d eat grapes and spit the seeds into a cup. Then you’d give the cup to the local priest, who paid you in nickels. Those were good nickels. Could spend an entire day at the track, just on those nickels.
Now, people spit the seeds out on the ground for the pigeons to choke on. I guess pigeons need to choke on something. Not like they have much else to do.
What do I think is the best fruit? It’s simple: grapples.
Silas Black didn’t like the woman very much. He thought it might have been her nose. No, it wasn’t that. It was her smile. She had a wry smile. It made her look smug. Silas didn’t like people who were smug. Some people called him smug. But they confused smugness with knowing stuff.
This woman knew stuff. Too much stuff.
People flocked from all over the city to see her. From the outer boroughs, even. She had started in a small tea shop. Now she appeared in an off-off Broadway theater. Soon, people from outside New York would be flying in to see this medium. As the city’s only paranormal detective, it bothered Silas.
Robert Asher sat on a park bench. He was uncomfortable. His acquaintance, Phillip Pettigrew, stood a few feet away. Pettigrew watched him, arms folded across his chest. Although his eyes were closed, Asher could feel Pettigrew’s stare. It was like a drill boring into his skull.
“You know, I’m starting to wonder why I asked you for help,” Asher said.
“Is it?” Pettigrew looked around, noticing for the first time the snowflakes that were falling to the ground.
“I’m not sure you really can help me,” Asher said.
Asher grumbled. This was becoming difficult. He was not used to things being difficult. At least, a thing as second-nature to him as this. Since he was a boy, he had the power to sense the presence of the dead. Specifically, he could read the thoughts and feelings of ghosts as well as detect traces of their presence. With this power, he worked as an occult detective, solving cases the police off as impossible. It was there that he found, the real challenges.
Robert Asher was sitting up in a tree. It wasn’t his idea. Nor was it his idea to handle the awkwardly designed crossbow that was nestled against his shoulder. He wasn’t a very good shot with the bow; after all, he had only practiced using it for a few hours before he got into the tree. When he had to use a weapon, he preferred a gun. Given the circumstances, however, that wouldn’t have worked; bullets don’t come in silver.
Asher shifted his weight in the blind. The whole tree shook. For a moment he questioned the wisdom of putting a man of his size twenty feet up an oak. The hunter who had hastily instructed him on the matter assured Asher it was fine. At that moment the detective wasn’t so convinced.
He had no way of consulting the old hunter, though: he had been eaten a day ago.
Pulling back his glove, Asher checked his watch. In the thin gleam of the moonlight he saw that it was two o’clock. His breath curled away like smoke, fogging up the watch face. He let the glove fall back over it and looked out at the woods around him.
He was somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains. Asher wasn’t certain where exactly; he had been moving for days and was sure he crossed state lines more than once. All he was confident of was that it was night and there was a rancid smell in the air.
It reminded him of blood and feces. The stench had been growing for the last hour. Asher was no outdoorsman; he wasn’t familiar with the scents of nature. But this was not a natural smell. It was ripe and thick. He could taste it on his tongue. It was a smell he knew all too well.
The creature appeared, slowly moving down the slope. Asher narrowed his eyes as he watched it move. The creature clung to the ground like a spider. Its arms and legs were splayed out, making it almost flat. Asher didn’t believe something that was once a man could bend like that.
Head forward, it slunk from tree to tree. Asher held his breath and listened. He heard a low, snuffling sound. It was searching for his scent. Asher wondered how the monster could smell anything over its own stench. But he knew that its sense of smell was preternaturally keen. It could have picked Asher out from a mile away.
The thing paused by a tree only yards away. The detective watched as the creature studied the trunk. The large arms reached out, clamping onto the tree with both hands. Its breathing grew louder as the creature exerted its strength. With a crack, the tree broke in half. Asher watched chunks of truck slide down the mountainside. The thing hunkered down beside the shattered stump, almost gloating.
Robert Asher wasn’t feeling well. His head was throbbing and his vision was blurred. Every subtle noise would send stabs of pain through his skull. A glass of Alka-Seltzer was foaming beside his hand. He absentmindedly rubbed the welt on the side of his face as he glanced at the morning paper. Last night did not go as planned.
The footsteps screamed at him. Harsh steps echoed down the hall, doing little to alleviate his condition. Two sets of patent leather shoes squeaked and snapped at the hardwood floors outside his office. A third pair was a little more forgiving, stepping lightly behind. The noise wasn’t helping Asher’s mood. It got even worse when the feet stopped at his door.
They hesitated before knocking. Despite the effort to whisper, Asher heard them plainly.
Asher sat up in his chair and focused his eyes on the door. Washington? This was getting interesting. The men called Tom and Patrick continued to bicker, until the third man intervened.