Rotten Tomatoes

Illustrations by Grace McKenna

I did not want to bring her to the backyard. Because it overflows with rotten tomatoes. 

I was addicted to them when they were fresh but once they started stinking, I had to get rid of them. And I’d hoped the plants outside my kitchen window would accept them as manure. But what if they didn’t? What if the soil I tried to bury them in throws them back at me today, painting my new clothes with rotten red? What if I thought I'd buried them deep enough for them to decompose but I stepped on one of them, my feet sinking into their flesh with a squelch? What if then their bleeding insides get all over my feet and I can't keep walking even though it's a sunny day and the sky is singing like a bird freed of freedom?  

God, what if she smells them, finds out how rotten the things I bury are? What if she leaves, to never come back into my stinking little garden again and my kitchen window only ever opens to throw out rotten tomatoes? 

And what if — what if it is not the memories that are rotten but me? How do I know the difference between one dead matter and another? 

So no, I did not want to bring her here. And I was right! Here we are now, standing five feet apart, staring at the mess of my mind laid bare on the soil. She walked right into it; she doesn’t look where she puts her feet! I want to grab her hand and run. Please don’t turn away please don’t turn away please don’t tu — 

She crouches down to her haunches, staring at the tomato at her feet. Please don’t turn away please don’t!  

And then she picks it up and bites into it, the rotten insides of the fruit sliding down her chin, dripping onto her nice white shirt.  

‘I’m bleeding all over you,’ I say. 

She smiles up at me sheepishly. ‘It’s alright.’