I’ve lost the apple, can’t find it any where. I describe it to them — such a remarkable apple! How could I have lost it?  So unusual. Perfect in its imperfection. Though its one side was misshapen, the other held the profile of a man, of Abraham Lincoln.

“Is this it?”

He hands an apple to me. Can it be? the one I dropped and lost mere moments ago? Yes! The weight of it fills my palm. I hold the curve of crisp fruit in my left hand between thumb and forefinger, and turn it back and forth to behold again its remarkable shape.

But…it’s changing…losing its blush of red and green hues; softening beneath my fingers’ grip. Slowly, it reshapes itself into something fleshy, pallid, disturbing. No longer an apple, I now hold what looks like a shrunken, knobby  head. A mashed face that sprouts mismatched ears. The narrow spaces behind those ears are filthy with crud. Beneath my fingers, the head moves and shifts and wriggles. Features still uncertain, it stares back at me with dark, bead-bright eyes. No longer a thing of wonder, it is now utterly repulsive.

“Apple Abe” — C.Birde, 12/15