by Gail Louise Siegel

Marguerite is in the apple aisle. It’s her plan to keep the doctor away, eat well, melt fat. She longs for a Honeycrisp, but they’re out of season. She wanders from pyramid to pyramid. The produce man tops off a tottering green heap of Granny Smiths with his sure, agile hands. The Grannies aren’t what they used to be; the skin is tough and greasy, the innards mealy. Nothing is what it used to be. The Pinks are yellow and the Delicious are not. The produce man slowly wipes his fingers on his apron, the white cloth stained brown with rotten fruit. Marguerite rejects the Fujis—watery, not tart. There is a jungle's worth of apples, but none worth eating. The produce man whips his black bangs off his face, like a horse shaking his forelock. Marguerite loses heart at the wormy-looking Jonathans and half-breed Jonagolds. Every time she loves an apple, it changes on her, just like a lover. She kisses a prince, and voila! A toad. The produce man whistles through slightly chapped red lips and tends the display. He cuts up a Gala and offers her a wedge. She walks down the aisle to him, and reaches out, anxious to taste it.

Gail Louise Siegel’s stories can be found in Wigleaf, Juked, Smokelong Quarterly, FRiGG, Post Road, Quay and other nooks and crannies on the web, and on thin sheets of dried cellulose. She lives just barely outside of Chicago.