Short Fiction

Oranges

by Gamer

I saw an old man buying one orange, and it bothered me, seeing him waiting in that big, long line for just one orange.

Oranges are no good, and they’re everywhere. Sour, cloying, acidic orbs of wedged segments containing juice. Juice trapped a fibrous, spherical prison, membranes and acrid white pith. Inedible skin marked with a severed umbilical stump. It’s like biting into cancer polyps. It bursts, crunches, leaks and can’t make up its mind. And the name is bad. Just imagine calling an apple a red, or a lemon a yellow. We eat them out of a quiet obligation. Fruit lovers at farmer’s markets don’t go for the oranges. Maybe blood oranges, if they’re trying to impress.

The old man wanted one orange – this catapulted my thoughts. Proof that I am intriguing.

Rumination: An orange is a berry, which makes it sadder, waiting in line to buy one berry.

Rumination: The old man travels light. Life is short, he might die soon, doesn’t want rotten oranges in his house – he’s rotting, oranges are rotting, maggots everywhere.

Rumination: There is something sad. Like a Van Gogh in the movie Little Man Tate. A lone white flower and he knew it was about being lonely. Well that’s me. Little Man Tate. I’m dumber. But there is something sad, still.

I’m the opposite of the old man. I want beer, soda, pretzels, full-fat cookies, Lucky Charms, fried onions in a can. Easy cheese.

The old man looked poor. The orange looked like light in his hands. An orange completed him. I have higher aspirations. I would need a million dollars. A girl.

I had a girl. Once I imagined her death. Fantasized about how sad it would be and how I’d act at the funeral. Imagined myself delivering her eulogy. I moved myself to tears with this fantasy. Not at the sadness of her dying, but about how brilliantly I composed the eulogy. I was touched that I could be so eloquent.

I told her about it. She couldn’t identify. I tried to explain it in a positive light. She still found it morbid and self-centered.

Turns out she had cancer when I was telling her this. Not cancer, really. A fibroid tumor. We stopped dating, which was fine.

She wasn’t bright in the guy sense, but content with her world. I told her she was like Suzanne, in the song. She said she never heard of it. We were doomed. Then she made me see the sunrise. Mess of colors, glowing-orange disc. She was in awe. I tried to be in awe. Wasn’t.

I’m alone like that old man, maybe more. Addressing an imaginary jury in heaven with these words. When I die, they will say: that thing you thought about the orange was cool. We have just the place for you. Where tragic heroes go when potential fails to bear fruit.

Clearly I see myself as a tragic hero. I’m not a hero, I know. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling like one. Maybe, if I keep talking, I’ll discover that I really am one.

It can happen. A fifth grade teacher who was mean, one day, he chuckled at a joke a kid made. Instant hero. Character transcendence.

Can’t imagine waiting in line for one orange, unless character transcendence was involved. And even then…the next day I’d probably go back to my one-orange-hating ways.

Like that mean teacher. I asked why we had to learn boring stuff. He said cleaning tables at McDonald’s is boring, so I’d be well prepared. Prepared for boredom.

Later I lived in a dank rental building with hip young neighbors. Bored, and I’d go up to a woman sunbathing, and tell her she was insecure. I’d look at her body. She left and said I could stay out there with my “bad self.”

I told Tumor Girl. She said it was no wonder I was so negative all the time. Acting like a jerk. Literally acting, she said.

She also said Gus, poor Gus, you have so much potential. Condescending. Gus this. Gus that. I know my name.

I talked to my dad about the old man. I said I thought I was lame for thinking about it. He thought it was really “neat,” and that people should eat more fruit.

He’s a cop, a true hero. He likes nature cause it’s “pretty.” I ask him things, and always right before I hang up the phone, I feel like I’m forgetting something.

I doubt he could’ve told me anything about the old man buying one orange. He’d probably bring up The Old Man And The Sea.

The old man didn’t have a beard, like Hemingway. Just a moustache. Wants that tuft of hair under his nose. Goes through the trouble. Why? I want to know.

The only people who know me are my buddies from school. If I ran into one now, he’d probably say “okay, one orange, and a moustache, but forget the moustache.”

Smart in a guy way. He’d know to disregard the moustache part. Recognize it for the foolishness it is. He’d continue “you’ve got beer, chips, full fat cookies, and what else…cheese puffs?”

“Easy cheese,” I’d say.

“And you’re still not happy!” he’d say. “You need to find that one thing that makes it all worth it…you know, your one orange.”

“Jack Palance!” I’d say, and he’d get the reference to the movie City Slickers. “But it can’t be that one thing thing. I think I’m just feeling sad for the guy’s loneliness.”

“Like Little Man Tate,” he would say. He’s heard of Little Man Tate.

But she’s never heard of Leonard Cohen. (I’m on tumor girl now.)

In fairness, she did think it was pretty, the song Suzanne. She asked what it meant. I offered to lend her the CD. She said no. She preferred the way I played it, just sitting in the dark with my guitar. And the sunset was pretty when she pointed it out.

“Yeah, I know, you couldn’t care less,” she said. But I found it to be marginally attractive, like her. “It’s like God is painting it for us,” she said.

I explained to her that if there were purple hexagons, symmetrical stripe patterns, little elves, hounds tooth, anything of that nature, then that might indicate a divine intelligence. As it is, it only indicates chaos.

She explained that for her it feels like nature is a backdrop for the way life is supposed to go. Beautiful if you’re living true to yourself. Cause if you don’t, Mother Nature’s backdrop won’t make sense.

She also said that when we felt like we’re living right and being ourselves, that’s when the sky looks most beautiful and profound. That’s when sunsets are breathtaking. The sound of dead leaves blowing in the wind feels good. But when we’re being idiots, and deep down we know it, we can’t get anything from a big orange sun. It’s not ours.

She asked if that sounded dumb to me and I told her it did.