we were asked to write a drabble/snapshot about a photo lol
"Apples to apples"
-By Beelzebub (my cool alter ego)
Apples.
It's not something you think of when you hear about abuse. I know, this may sound far-fetched, but to me, apples have been something of a horror show.
Apples are a dark reminder of the position I'd been put into when I was born. There is nothing for me to like about apples. A fuckish fruit with nothing but bad memories.
"I bought you another bushel of apples, Sirena," Farmer Waylon said. He peered around the door, trying to get a glance of the filth inside. "What d'ya that many apples for?" He joked.
I peered around my mother's ankles to stare up at him. He gave me a friendly smile and a wave before returning his gaze to my mother. Mom blinked.
"Oh, just making some pie." She croaked. Waylon nodded.
"Alright.. I'll... be on my way then." He sighed, turning and cracking his back. I gave the outside a longing look before the door shut, cutting off the sunlight for another three months.
I trudged through the grimy heaps of junk decomposing and collecting a nauseating odour that spread across the house.
The windows were grimy, socks stuffed in places they shouldn't be, and cobwebs stretched across dusty piles of books. I know that this isn't the most palatable life for a 4-year-old and a 9-year-old, but this was truly the only home we knew. Beyond the reach of sunlight and sheltered from joy. Our house had a pretty good chance of completely toppling over as if it were made of wet cardboard, and an even better chance of being featured on Hoarders, the television series. The point is, our house had no place in a white picket fence neighbourhood like ours.
I ambled through the rubbish to our kitchen, where I found my mother slicing apples. Not to dip in peanut butter, not to put in a pie. Just apples.
You'd think I'd be dead by now if I told you the only thing I'd eaten was apples for nine years straight. The thing is, I had a very rare disorder called phenylketonuria. Look it up if you're really curious. And that combined with my mother being poor, made for a wonderful specific kind of abuse that's made me hate apples my whole life, even til as I write this as a 55-year-old woman.
My mother handed me a plate of apples and grunted over towards our grubby table. I sat down and quietly ate my apples, watching my little brother play with his toys.
"Still hungry?" My mother asked, leaning against the dirty counter and raising an eyebrow in irritation. I nodded, too afraid to say anything under her. hawk-eyed stare.
She tossed me a whole apple, and I stumbled to catch it, my clumsy fingers fumbling with it midair for a split second before I caught it on the top of my head. My mother frowned.
"Stop playin' with your food and eat it." She snapped, lumbering out of the room like the least graceful ogre in the world.
I felt my eyes welling up with tears, the shimmering apple in my hand reflecting a blurry image of my own face against its smooth, waxy surface.
"Apples to apples?" my brother's voice jolted me from my train of thought. With a slight lift of my head, I met his gaze and a small, resigned smile crept across my lips. I sank to the ground in front of him.
"Dust to dust," I softly murmured, the words a familiar echo between us, a ritual we had held dear for years during moments of melancholy.
