The desert stretched, unending, and she walked, unyielding. There! Apart from the oblong cacti. Apart from the shadows of vultures with their mangled beaks and many wings. A wonder of memory; a sight as old and forsaken as the feel of Earth between her toes: an apple. Defiantly crimson against the sepia backdrop, a misplaced stitch on the wretched, monotonous tapestry of dunes and sky. The pride of an invisible orchardist. A morsel of survival. Of home.
After hours or days or entire moons of walking, she reached her prize. At her lips, the taut flesh rested, warm and smooth as if fresh-plucked from the tree. She let her eyelids become its canopy and felt the honest coolness of its shade. She inhaled, but sweat overpowered the bouquet. She aligned her good teeth at the apple’s crown. The skin gave, releasing a cascade of sand and disappointment over her tongue.
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