‘CORE’ — a short story

There's an apple on the bedroom floor. I stare at it as if it will grow a mouth and explain to me exactly how it got there. When this doesn't happen, I pick it up and put it back in the kitchen with the others, then make a cup of tea. As the milk forms clouds in my cup, I glance again at the pile of apples sitting motionless on top of the microwave. The rogue one is indistinguishable from its brothers. I'm not as bothered as I should be. I live alone, and I don't drink enough to go throwing fruit around the house without remembering it the next morning. Still, it's only an apple, so I finish my tea and go to work.

      The next day is a Saturday, and the apple is on one of the bathroom shelves. The doorbell has just rung, so I barely have time to give it a second look before I'm rushing downstairs to get the door. It's Amy. She gives me the bare minimum of a hello and goes to sit in the living room. By the time I join her, the divorce papers are already sitting on the coffee table.

      'Thank you,' I say as she hands me a pen. I sign; I initial, and sign again. The faint scratching sound of pen on paper is devastating in the silence. 

      'Hey, can I tell you a secret?' When we were married, Amy loved secrets, but things are different now.

      'No.'

      'The house is haunted.'

      'What?' she says. I gather my courage and smile at her.

      'Since you left. The house is being haunted. There's this apple…'

      'Don't start.'

      'I'm not starting anything,' I say.

      'Just don't. Whatever line you're about to try,'

      'I'm not trying a line,' I say, 'really. There's an apple moving around in here. Yesterday it was on the floor in our room. Today I found it in the bathroom. It's doing it by itself.'

      'Your room,' she says. The only thing bothering her about this information is the pronoun I've attached to the bedroom. I surrender.

      'You're right. My room.'

      Amy collects the signed papers back up and leaves, reminding me on her way out that the daffodils need watering. Once she's gone I return to the bathroom, where the apple is waiting for me. I examine it. I pick it up, weigh it in both hands, and smell it. It seems normal enough. Maybe there's a scientific explanation for its relocation. I decide to do some intensive googling later, and put it back on the shelf.

      Eight days pass, and on each the apple moves again. On day three I notice it's getting further and further from where I first found it in the bedroom, and wonder if it might be trying to lead me somewhere. On day four however, it's back in my room, this time on the nightstand. This is the first day I speak to it.

      'How can I help you?' I ask, as if I am a hotel clerk and the apple is a guest, which I'm not sure is far from the truth. No response.

      'What do you want?' The apple says nothing.

      'Nothing?'

      I almost throw it away then, but I don't. I tell myself I am not afraid. It just isn't worth getting worked up over an apple. If I try to get rid of it, I decide, the apple wins.

      On the fifth day I commit myself to gathering up Amy's remaining possessions. Aside from several mouldy placemats I know she won't want back, there's a loveseat shaped like a pair of lips in the attic that I definitely have no use for. I call her the second I finish moving it downstairs, and she agrees to pick it up on Sunday. The sooner the better, I tell her, as it's currently disgracing the living room. As I put down the phone, I notice something red out of the corner of my eye. The apple is sitting in the exact centre of the kitchen table. For the first time I'm unnerved. Something about its position is too precise. Still, I can't bring myself to throw it out, or even move it. I consider explaining to the apple that I am currently going through a divorce, that this is a difficult time for me, and could it please take this into consideration?

      On Friday night, the apple makes its biggest move yet. I'm dreaming about the forest where Amy and I camped during our second wedding anniversary. We're sitting cross legged in our tent, just looking at each other, and there's something wrong with her face. Her lips are a different shape, or one of her eyes isn't moving quite in sync. Something like that. The next moment, we're sitting outside on a picnic blanket. Amy brings out a picnic basket and smiles. Her face is back to normal. She opens the basket and pulls out an apple, only I can tell it's not just any apple. It's the apple, the one from the house. She offers it to me. Now that I know I am dreaming, the edges of the world begin to blur. The ground I am sitting on is soft and misshapen, and the trees around us bend unnaturally, but as I take the apple I feel it is as real and solid as it is in life. Somehow, I've gotten the apple in bed with me. I must be holding it outside the dream. Or else, I think, it has followed me inside. I wake suddenly, sitting up and grasping at thin air. The apple is nowhere to be seen. I scramble out of bed and check the dark corners of the room, disrupt the already rumpled sheets, and hang my head over the edge of the bed to check underneath. It's not there.

      A tightness begins in my chest. Something is wrong, and I know I have to find the apple soon, before it's too late. I go from room to room, checking in increasingly unlikely places, my search becoming frantic as I find the kitchen similarly bare. Desperate now, I head to check the back garden. The tightness in my chest is joined by a heaviness in my stomach, and I begin to suspect the worst. The apple is inside me. It got lost on its way out of the dream, and is now lodged somewhere between the folds of my lower intestine. 

      The garden is freezing cold, and as I turn a quick circle I fear that the apple will not be able to come out, that it will rot inside me if I don't find some way to remove it. But then I see it, resting in the empty birdbath Amy put up herself. I run to it, cradle it in my arms. It's half frozen, and I wrap it in my shirt as I bring it back inside. 

      'What was that?' I ask, placing it on the coffee table and collapsing on the couch. We look at each other, both exhausted. 'Don't do that again. I give you space, I leave you be. And I expect the same in return.' 

      The apple says nothing. 

      'Something like that happens again, and we're going to have problems,' I say finally, attempting to muster something like a shred of authority. But the apple doesn't understand rules. It has no sense of right and wrong, it will not listen to me. I turn my back on it suddenly, and go back to bed angry. 

      Saturday drags itself to its feet unsteadily, and I wake for good at just past noon, nursing something a lot like a hangover. The apple is on the coffee table where I left it, which feels like a cruel joke. I stand in the kitchen doorway, drinking my tea and watching it, silently. It's going to have to go. No doubt about it. While amusing at first, I want it out of my house for good. The problem is how to make it happen. Physically destroying it is out of the question. The thought of even holding it again feels me with an overwhelming sense of disquiet. The thought of eating it repulses me further. If only I could divorce it, I think. I laugh at my own joke. The apple glances at me, wondering what's so funny, but I say nothing. Two can play at this game.

      When night falls, I brush my teeth and return to the bedroom to find the apple on the floor again. The sight is almost charming, as if it wants to be friends again.

      'Let's go back to the way things were,' it says. 

      'I'm sorry,' I say, 'this has to be it for us.'

      The apple says nothing, but I think it understands. I doubt we will speak again.

When Amy arrives the next evening, the apple is reclining on the chaise lounge in the living room, right next to the disgraceful loveseat. She stares at it.

      'I told you,' I say.

      'You didn't put it there?' she asks.

      'Why would I put it there?' We aren't on speaking terms in any case.

      'So it just moves around?' She's sceptical. I know I can't blame her, but I do it anyway.

      'Right.'

      'Well, at least it's just an apple.'

      'Just an apple?' I say.

      'It's not hurting you, is it? What's the problem?'

      'Apples aren't supposed to move around by themselves.'

      'I still don't see why it's such an issue,' says Amy.

      'Well, it's bothering me,' I say. Amy sighs.

      'Help me move this thing will you?' She nods at the loveseat, ending my apple talk.

      We each grab one end of the lips, and begin to take clumsy shuffling steps towards the front door. It fits easily through the frame, and we're halfway to Amy's truck when I'm struck by an idea. I put my end of the loveseat down.

      'What?' says Amy. 'Is it your back again?' 

      'I'm fine,' I say, 'Amy, do you think you could give me a ride?' She raises an eyebrow at me.

      'No. I'm meeting Michelle for dinner after this, and I still have to go home and change. You know how she gets when I'm late.'

      'I know, I know. It won't take long. Thirty minutes at most. You know the research lab just off 96? Past that exit with the two McDonald's. The one where Joey's sister in law used to work. Just there. I'll get the bus back.'

      'Is this still about the apple?' she says.

      'I don't know who I'd talk to about it, but I know I'd like a scientific opinion,' I say.

      'Why can't you drive yourself?'

      'I want to keep an eye on the apple. It might move on the way there.'

      Amy closes her eyes tight, pained. You would think I'd asked her to donate bone marrow for the apple. She opens her eyes again. They're glaring at me.

      'No. You're on your own.' 

      'Amy,' I say. I try to soften my voice, but it's been so long that it comes out strained. 'Amy,' I try again, 'please, I wouldn't ask if it wasn't really important. I need your help Ames.' 

      A long silence, then: 

      'They're going to commit you before they take you seriously,' she says.

      'But you'll drive me?' I ask.

      'Only because it's on the way.'

      We're halfway there, and something is bothering Amy. When I glance quickly up from the apple now nestled in one of the cup holders, I see that her hands are white on the wheel, and her lower lip is twitching. I shouldn't ask. I shouldn't take this bait. I shouldn't.

      'What's wrong?' I ask.

      'It's nothing.'

      'It's clearly something.'

      Amy bites the jumpy lower lip. She opens her mouth and closes it again.

      'I still don't understand,' she says finally.          

      'What don't you understand? The apple moves. Simple,' I say.

      'I tried my best,' she says, 'I really did. You know that, right?'

      I don't know what this has to do with the apple. I glance up at her again, and see that her eyes are filling with tears. I understand now. She wants to talk about it again. Great. I've known for a while that her cold front wasn't going to last. She has impeccable timing.

      'Don't,' I say, 'really, don't start.'

      'It's just,' she says, beginning to sniffle, 'you asking me for favours, it's not fair is it? You're the one who wanted to — to — to split up.'

      'Amy, I told you this is important,' I say, 'this apple could be the first step in a scientific revolution.'

      'You just want it out of the house,' she says, a drip forming at the end of her nose, the tears in her eyes dangerously close to spilling over.

      'Honestly? Yes, that too. I told you, it's bothering me.' Amy isn't listening. She's on a roll now.

      'I can't keep coming over, pretending I'm going to move on, when I still don't understand what I did wrong. If you would just tell me, I could fix it. Bringing over the divorce papers was…the hardest thing I ever had to do.' She starts to cry. I consider throwing myself from the moving van, but I have to bring the apple, and it might get bruised.

      'The apple…' she says.

      'What about it?'

      'It just moves around, right? It's not hurting you. It doesn't want to hurt you. But you want it gone, you can't stand it!' Her breaths sound painful, like something overheating.

      'It annoyed you didn't it? That I took care of you. That I was a good person for you.'

      I refuse to answer. I'm not saying a word. Not a word, even if for once, she's spot on. Amy is sobbing, and I'm trying to tune it out. We're ten minutes away from the lab.

      'I'm taking the apple.' I can barely understand her through the tears and snot and heaving.

      'Excuse me?' I say.

      'You're going to get rid of it, like you got rid of me. I'll give it a home, I'll let it be.'

      'Don't be stupid.'

      'I'm not being stupid,' she yells. I realize she's being serious; Amy never yells. 'I'm taking the apple. It's better off with me.'

      'You're not. It's going to be studied one way or another. I'll walk to the lab if I have to.' I go to grab it out of the cup holder, and my hand closes around air.

      'Oh Jesus Christ,' I say. Amy is still sobbing. I'm more annoyed than I've been since I filed for divorce. I wish I were a bad person, the kind of person who could scream at her, hit her, maybe even kill her. But I'm not.

      'God, Amy, stop crying. Make a U-turn.'