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day by day: a blog

September 22, 2007

sanguinello (citrus sinensis)

sanguinello.jpg Absolutely all that happened was that you, or rather your hand, reached out and offered me a small segment of orange, a tiny quarter-moon of pulp, seeds and juice. The piece of fruit lay in my outstretched right palm, curled up like a strange kind of shrimp or a miniature, discoloured baby. Slowly I picked up the piece of orange and held it between my left thumb and forefinger. The strange thing is that, although you were talking to me and giving me pieces of orange, I did not have any idea about why you were or who you were or who I was. Nor did any of it seem to matter. I lifted the segment of fruit up to the window and stared at it again. Sunlight flooded through; everything changed hue. Now I saw that inside the orange's skin, about half the fruit's flesh had been displaced by a tiny sac of dark liquid. For a moment, I could not take my eyes off this little, black spot. I wanted to squeeze, to burst the sac. Then you spoke. "It's called a blood orange", you said. You were still faceless and without identity, as was I. But I nodded gravely. And then, sighing, I hung my head down in shame.

Anyway, as I say, I realized a few seconds later that this was all just the inside of a dream. I woke up in a sweat. The first thoughts that came into my head were: "There is orange juice running down my face and chest." And then, "Orange... orange, there is no rhyme for orange. It has no mate. Or for silver, or purple. Or for wolf, or dangerous or hospital."

Posted by njenkins at September 22, 2007 04:08 AM

With the exception of interspersed quotations, all writing is © 2007-09 by Nicholas Jenkins