I dreamed of rot.
It begins not with a seed, but with a rind. A tough, bitter, solar-orange rind that has been peeled back by a thumbnail caked with soil. Beneath it, the pith is a wound of white, and beneath that, the flesh is a universe of wet, segmented stars. I Am Kurious Oranj Rar
They called me Kurious because I asked questions. “Why must the peel be our tomb?” I asked the tangerine to my left. It told me to shut up and photosynthesize. I dreamed of rot
The day of the Harvest came. A hand, gloved in impersonal latex, plucked my siblings. They were loaded into a wire basket, laughing with a shrill, citrus terror. I held on. I flexed the tiny stem that connected me to the branch, the umbilical of lignin and sap. I held on until the hand moved on, dismissing me as a runt, a weird one, not worth the calorie of the pluck. Beneath it, the pith is a wound of
I was never a rarity.
Day one of my ground-life: A slug traced a silver question mark across my face. I felt it as a cool, ambiguous caress.