Garden

By Jacqueline Goyette

There were worms in some of the apples. She pushed them aside, reached further into the blossoms, finding more colors there.

Adam was waiting impatiently, as if this apple picking could only be her job, like she was built for it, in the way the word ‘woman’ sounded like an insult on his lips. She was tired of those lips anyway, that constant smack of them, the long slithering tongue.

She snapped one single apple from the furthest branch. “Forget the fruit,” she thought, catching Adam’s reflection in the apple’s glossy skin—“I’ll just burn this whole orchard to the ground.”