Since Don died, Doris filled her days feeding the ever-growing number of cats and tending her rose bushes, the only thing she’d ever really been good at, she thought.
She played the one song she knew on the electric piano her grandson gave her, Away in a Manger. The sound was tinny through the pink headphones.
“I look ridiculous.”
“Who’s looking, Grandma?”
Her new church had a real piano. She only had to ask.
She attended every church function, only to watch the circle close with her outside it, her cakes the only ones left untouched.
One night Marcy, with her perfect white curls, loud voice and glinting rings, took a bite of Doris’s cornbread.
“Goodness. This is perfectly inedible.”
Doris waited until no one was looking, snatched up the cornbread, and slipped home.
You are not going to cry about this, Doris. Didn’t shed a single tear for Don, and you’re not going to cry over cornbread.
She was about to scrape it into the bin when she caught movement outside. Glowing green eyes watched her through the glass.
“My word, I forgot to feed you!”
The moon was full. She slid the door open and a dozen cats streaked through the moonlight around her bare feet. She stroked the green-eyed one.
“You wouldn’t eat my cornbread either, I bet.”
Beyond the garden stood a brambled shadow.
“What on earth?”
Had it grown over the fence overnight? Heavy crimson fruit glistened from its branches.
She leaned in and recoiled. The smell was meaty and musky—rank and sweet.
The green cat at her feet, lapped the split fruit greedily.
The next morning the tree was gone.
She’d slept nearly seventeen hours.
“Heaven, it must have been a dream.”
After bingo, Doris asked the pastor to play the piano.
She spread her hands across the keys. At last. The melody filled her bones.
There was no applause—conversation hadn’t even stopped. She heard Marcy laugh.
“Doris, it’s not Christmas. Play something else.”
Marcy didn’t look up at her.
At home she sat bolt upright in Don’s armchair, palms on her knees.
“Can’t you just let me have one moment, Marcy? One tiny moment of glory? One silly song? One stupid cornbread?”
The cats were everywhere. The tree stood swollen with fruit.
One fruit blinked. She approached—two green eyes stared from its crimson flesh.
Eyes darting, she saw that every fruit held a cat she’d come to know. She picked a faceless fruit. its scent was sweet, like a flower opening.
Ripped open, the flesh inside twisted in beaded, worming whorls.
She woke in Don’s armchair, arms stained to the elbows, her feet black with juice.
On the counter was the most beautiful cake she’d ever seen. Glossy crimson coulis. Frosting in flawless lines.
She carried it beneath its bell to the parish dinner.
I’d better hurry or I’ll be late.
Later, back home, she looked at the waiting cats.
“I’ll bring my piano out here. Who’s not watching now?”
This was written for Andrew Robert Colom’s Rap Fiction Battle. Tabitha Grace and I had 3 hours to write 500 word stories from a prompt from Nick Winney.
Read my lovely opponent’s hilarious story here: Frankenfruit
This is wonderfully eerie and surprisingly moving. Doris feels fully alive on the page, and her loneliness makes the strange fruit and missing cats storyline hit much harder. The image of the cats inside the fruit is genuinely unsettling, and the story balances horror, sadness, and dark humor. I especially loved Doris’s desire to be seen and appreciated, which gives the ending a dope weight beyond the creepiness. The final line is fantastic and leaves the story on exactly the right note.
Oh I wasnt prepared for this much emotion this early in the morning! You really get me in the feels, dude.