Charli’s July 23, 2014 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes fruit. It can be mythological, metaphorical or realistic. Think of fruit as a way to create tension, add a twist or something unexpected to your story. Use it to define a character or make it her obsession. Is it abundant, absent or desired? Respond by noon (PST) Tuesday, July 29 to be included in the compilation.
Charli’s accompanying prose is beautiful to read and shows that she has a different view of fruit to myself. My body has always told me not to eat fruit and I tend to obey my body. I believe it knows what it needs and I answer the call it gives me. Send down meat it will occasionally cry out, more vegies and quickly about it, ice cream needed now are some of the commands that it issues forth but never, never does it say Send down fruit.
This of course caused some angst between my mother and me in my younger days. Huge monumental battles were fought over the consumption (or lack of) in regards to fruit. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” I didn’t believe for a moment. Their dire predictions of colds besetting me without the aid of copious quantities of oranges never came to fruition and sometimes I believe they would rather have had me ill just to prove their point that fruit was healthy.
I didn’t get rickets, I didn’t get sick unless I ate fruit. Then I felt as though my body was giving me payback for consuming an item it had made quite clear was to be refused. My joints ached and creaked within hours of eating an orange and tropical fruit left me cold. I just didn’t like the taste, the texture or the smell unlike my fictional character Nelly.
The sweet, sickly scent of the over-ripe fruit invaded her nostrils as she entered the room. The case of juicy mangos she had been given that morning would not last long in this heat. The thought of throwing her beloved fruit away was too difficult to contemplate so Nelly sat, the case in front of her and proceeded to eat the yellow, dripping fruit one after the other until she devoured the entire twenty-four mangos. She sat with juice dribbling from her chin and a self-satisfied smile on her face which was swelling rapidly.
Mango allergy the coroners report read.
You think I’m joking. Did you know that mangos belong to the same plant family as poison oak, poison ivy and poison sumac. The main poison, the urushiol, is found in the skin of the mango and also the sap of the tree. If, like Nelly, you want to eat 24 in one sitting at least have someone peel the mango for you. It may save you to eat again.
Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist) 
Irene ! Tsk !! You are allowing your dislike of fruit to dictate your writing !!! [grin]
I find it very strange, your antipathy: I’ve spent my rather long life eating as much fruit as I possibly can: I remember even writing about it in my book (very briefly). I LOVE FRUIT. When I get my greengrocery deliveries and refill the fruit-bowl, I have to try to eke it out over the following week …but I rarely do. I just love it. Mind you, nothing wildly exotic – yer usual apples and mandarins and bananas and grapes, with seasonal mangoes (yup !) and stone-fruit thrown in.
Sorry to tell you all this: mebbe I’m a sadist rather than a masochist … 😀
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No I don’t think you’re a sadist. – just a fruit lover. Perhaps you are a bit fruity but I don’t think you are fruit loops 🙂
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[grin]
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Oh Irene I’m sorry sorry to hear about your fruit allergy, but you prove one thing – listen to your body, your body knows best. I didn’t know about the poison in mango skin and sap. I’ll have to make sure I avoid that next time I indulge. And indulge in mangoes I do like to do, bur never 24 at a time! That would be just a few too many! I do like your flash and can just imagine the juicy fruit dripping from her chin, and the smirk on her face. Well done!
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Thanks Norah. I don’t know that I have an allergy to fruit so much as just not liking it and the acid in many fruits does give me an arthritic reaction which I don’t have if I avoid fruit. The flash is just my perverse humour as everyone I know loves mangos.
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Nothing wrong with a little perverse humour now and then! 🙂
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🙂
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Oooh I love my fruit:)… Mangoes in my country are some of the tastiest in the world. Enough to change many a minds;)
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In Vanuatu they used to eat the mangos when they were firm and people in Australia would have said they weren’t ripe. I tried some of these and they were much better. Is that how you eat them too Nida?
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Wow! That’s frightening. An innocent, delicious mango, can be so dangerous!
Effective narrative! Just a tiny point, I’d change the second ‘dripping’ to dribbling, or something similar to avoid the repetition, unless of course that was done purposefully.
I’ve never taken part in this flash. I may be giving it a go!
I just pinged you on my post about what writers should read 🙂
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Thanks for the advice. Not done on purpose just a bit of a miss on my quick edit. Off to fix it and will pop over. Thanks Luccia. I love that we can help each other out. Cheers Irene
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🙂 Glad to be of help. Hope you can give ma advice, too!
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Opportune timing. Just reading and think you have put Sophie instead of Phoebe. Check it out. Am about to comment. Thanks for the mention. 🙂
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Yes! It’s Phoebe! Will correct ASAP!
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I didn’t know all this about mangoes. I like mine on the firm side, but they are so expensive here that I usually don’t eat them. I have some friends who love them and are willing to pay the price (so I eat them when they serve them) 😉 ! Do listen to what your body tells you…
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My mother had a mango allergy and for years couldn’t walk into a room with a single mango without her hairs standing on end no-one ever informed her of the relationship of the mango to these poisonous trees. I only found out by accident quite recently.
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This was was so good! You had me wanting a mango one second and contemplating ever eating another mango by the end.
The last sentence was my favorite, I am not sure if it was meant to be humorous but I found it quite funny. I love a good twist!
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Glad you found it funny Amber. It was supposed to be humorous but you can never tell how it will turn out. Thanks for popping by and commenting.
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What a spectacular way to go! Many in the old west were superstitious of eating fruit. I remember reading one of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books and the topic of malaria from watermelons came up. Apples were used for making cider, not eating raw. A group of miners were found dead in these parts after sharing a tin of peaches. Most likely it was botulism that killed them, but folks mistrusted fruit for a long time. And, I’ve heard of people having sensitivity to the acid in fruit. I can only eat a few bites of fresh pineapple and I never crave fruit (chocolate, yes, fruit, not so much). Terrific flash; love the biting humor!
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Yes the chocolate is the thing I crave also. Thanks for telling me about these books. It is interesting how much more aware we become of things in our own reading as a result of the prompt and obviously this has to then rub off on our writing. I had been unaware of fruit in the books I’ve read but I bet now there will be fruit salads jumping out at me everywhere.
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Thank you
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Ha! I shouldn’t be laughing at the poor girl but you did a great job with this. I was not expecting that one. Great description. Love this.
P.S. You killed someone! Does that mean I’m off the hook as “horror writer” at Carrot Ranch?
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So glad you enjoyed this poor girl’s demise Sarah and no I don’t think you are off the hook because it was the mango – not me. 🙂
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