I want to document every persimmon I eat. I’ve been eating them since I moved to this house – at first amazed that persimmon trees have followed me, then sneakily without permission, then unabashedly, every day, after receiving said permission. When I got here in July, they were hard and green and slowly turning orange. One of the first ones I picked was ripe and the ants had called dibs by laying their eggs inside. I was put off for a few days, but free fruit is free fruit. I started with smaller ones hanging at the end of branches in clumps and dusted off the ants. I experimented with size and color and got bold only once, picking a super ripe one, and the peel came off so easily my knife slipped through and nicked a finger. I took it as punishment for messing with the ants’ midsummer stake.
Today marks one year since my grandmother died. A year ago her body was lying in the living room. A fly landed on top of her and sat. When her spirit left, I put my finger under her nose like I had done all my life, when she was asleep – and I awake – to make sure she was still breathing. She wasn’t and that was it. The end of one life that impacted mine so spectacularly. The end of my best friend.
I’m sitting in my room now, drinking water and thinking with a heartache threatening to breach the normalcy of this gray day. The toilet is doing the thing where it needs help flushing so it runs and my roomlord’s wife is cooking outside. My roommate and I are minimizing contact and my coworkers are whatever. The only friend I expected to have my back in this state is someone I no longer associate with and when I’m feeling worried, anxious, and on the brink of texting them – “If something bad happened to me, would you still be there?” – I remind myself I shouldn’t be dependent on anyone but myself and that’s how it has to be for now.
The persimmon I picked today was one of the biggest I’ve picked yet. It was a nice, orange color and it didn’t look like the ants had started, though there were workers scoping it out and wondering how much longer it’d be until they finally, collectively, got around to eating it. I twisted it at the stem and plucked it off, brushing off the ants. In my bathroom I rinsed it, concentrating on the area where the leaves meet the fruit, the crook where ants begin their tunnel inside, and brought it back to my desk. As I waited for it to dry, the last survivor peaked out. I wasn’t in the mood to kill it, but what’s another bug? So I wiped the persimmon with a paper towel and the ant reappeared on the white sheet, crumpled, like one of its legs was a goner, but still skittering. I covered the ant sanctimoniously and pressed down with my finger. I thought about the implications of killing something on the anniversary of my grandmother’s death. I started to cut the persimmon –
but then, the ant reanimated.
It looked an equal amount of injured as before, but what was the little crunch I felt and how about the little spot of ooze it left on the paper towel?
What the fuck, I thought. This ant deserves this persimmon.
Here, ant, I offered. Take it.
But the ant was distrusting of big pieces of fruit placed in front of it, which makes sense after an attempted murder, and I took it back to the motherland. I carried it outside and dumped it next to the persimmon tree, watching it and hoping it didn’t get caught up in some territorial ant dispute before it had the chance to reunite with the gang. And then I went back in and ate the sweetest persimmon yet.
A STOR¥ BY ? 