Have you ever eaten an apple in the corner of a room?
It happened to me the other day as if it were something that could occur only by happening and not as a choice I made. The kitchen was marinating in the yellow of the morning, maturing into an amiable midday, the kind that promises a moderately productive day with notes of gratitude towards the trees outside my window and the expensive hot chocolate powder in the cupboard. Remnants of my flatmate Ava’s presence were sprinkled atop the dining table; the inside of a plastic container painted in overnight oats, half a banana with the other half of the skin already surrendered to a knife on a wooden chopping board, and her leather bag stuffed with a raincoat and hairbrush because she’s just practical like that. We were heading out in ten minutes then, on our to Glasgow for a music festival. Paranoid less about drinking on an empty stomach and more about indulging too much on snacks like chocolate minstrels and probably an entire box of tic tacs, I thought why not ensure a moderately satisfied belly with a moderately sized apple?
Hungover from a fortnight-long bender of sleep deprivation—a concoction of jet lag and a permanently ruined sleep schedule since my seven year old self pulled all nighters reading Geronimo Stilton novels—I situated myself between the kitchen counter and the door to the fridge. Leaning back between the two flat edges, I attacked the apple in my hand.
My teeth sunk viciously, eliciting a cartoonish crunch. What should be energising, has always been exhausting for me in regards to eating. The act of chewing and the the sensory experience of feeling a piece of food slide down my throat, knowing it has to sit in my stomach for hours upon hours, has always felt rather oppressive. I love food. I just don’t like eating. But for once I wasn’t surrendering to what was in my mouth, no. The apple was at my mercy, sitting pathetically on my tongue, begging for its life as I cut its flesh into bits with my bites. Sharp edges were threatening me from all sides, shouting at me like teenage boys, how could you be more violent than us? How dare you be more violent than us? Such children they were.
Chomping away at the apple, I was the most powerful person in the world, well, in the room. Well, I was the only person in the room but still.
It doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong about that, it matters that I feel it.
— Bones and All
I haven’t been able to write in months. I’m starting to think this is because I’ve lost any productive sense of morality and ethics regarding my own feelings. The kind of writing I write on here is one of organisation. Here, is where I talk about how I’ve been feeling, and what all of that could possibly mean. But how am I supposed to do that when I’m no longer capable of thinking beyond the acknowledgment and acceptance of my feelings.
This is why I end up writing things like eating an apple in the corner. I hoped abstraction guaranteed awakening but I cannot find my way around this wall of description.
Another thought comes to me: what difference would it make if I ate around the core of the apple as opposed to eating it’s entire body, bones, skin, meat and all? Does it make me a kinder person to just eat it whole, putting it out of its misery? Or maybe I should succumb to power’s seduction, prolong the suffering and leave its bare flesh and soul splayed out on the kitchen counter next to the eggs shells and specks of coffee grounds? I’d probably participate in whatever option requires less physical investment. So prolonging the suffering, I guess, it’s fewer bites. The physical taxation of chewing has plagued my love for food since I acquired literal taste. Perhaps this is a pretentious way of just saying I’m lazy but I swear I’m not. I’m certain I just lack the energy, the specific kind of energy essential to igniting pleasure while eating. It’s like a lack of libido but with food. Yet, in that corner, those bites were were puncturing a layer of the air around me, granting me access to a real air outside of my bubble. I could breathe finally, at the same time as eating. The sensuality of food was not a hoax.
Generally, apples bore me. Stone fruit is where my true passion lies. Nectarines have never let me down and I’ll always be willing to spend a couple more pounds for a box of cherries. A good plum is a perfect plum, despite how rare they may be, and a bag of dates will not survive in front of me. Apples have their moments when transformed into a flavour or accompanied by the pointiness of spices. However, the shape and name of an apples makes up for what it lacks in the other departments.
Exhibit A:
The Phonetic Experience of an Apple → In calling its name, for some time that is less than a moment, I revert back into an infant, unafraid to need my mother.
A(pple), it is the same A(hhhh) as a newborn’s wail.
Don’t you agree?
Exhibit B:
The Physical Optics of an Apple → Look at that ass! Sorry. But seriously, look at it. The curves of an apple aren’t obnoxious like that of a peach. It’s shy. Endearing even.
Exhibit C:
The Phonetic and Physical → The curves of an apple resemble the movements of the mouth when it’s name is called.
Try it.
C uu r vved.
See how you just bit your lip?
The cave of the C is mellowed out by the bluntness of the d at the end, and not with too much force. The d is lowercase, it’s amiable. We need more amiability in our lives I think. The pleasant mediocrity of niceness.
If you’ve reached this far into the article, nearly a month has passed since I first ate an apple in a corner. Still, I cannot write about anything but the apple. I guess I can barely write about the apple either considering I haven’t reached the end. Not just yet.
Apples are a primary fruit. It infamously appears in Genesis, the first book in the bible, and is the representative for A, the first letter of the alphabet. The kind of apple I’m talking about, the red ones, constitute of dominant reds and streaks of yellow. A duo of primary colours, the first ones in the rainbow and the colour wheel. Yet I can bet you that it’s not a primary fruit when someone is asked the question of their favourite fruit. Mangoes and strawberries and the occasional watermelon plague the horizon of answers.
Whenever I’m feeling peckish, I pop by to the Sainsbury’s below my flat and purchase one royal gala apple for 55p, along with a Kinder Happy Hippo that I have with my spiced apple chamomile tea while sitting on the balcony. Despite the many mugs that accumulate in my room, I don’t actually care so much for tea. Kind of in the same way as I don’t care so much for apples. But it’s ritualistic, I’m inventing a moment in choosing to care about it in the way that I do. It only takes the flat of my tongue for the head of the hippo to caves in on itself. Its collapse is gentle, the edges so soft that you don’t feel sorry for it at all. And now at this point on the screen, I am writing from my Monday literature lecture. In an hour and a half I will relive this moment. I am creating a happening, this is not something that happens to me. I happen to it.
You’ve been kind enough to hope this is more than a scrap of fruit. Don’t dwell too long. Don’t hesitate throwing this into the compost of words, where all without connotation and complication are disposed of. But do try eating an apple in a corner. And get back to me on that. I’d love to hear all about it.
missed your writing hannah
this is the type of thinking i strive to have but instead i just think chomp chomp chomp and also a million other thoughts on what i have to do in the next week