A Feast at the End of the World

Pour le premier homme

What madness comes to those who fall too long towards the horizon? I learned quickly to stop fighting the rushing water, realized I had slipped too far into a biting undertow to ever see the surface again. It was a shock then, to wake beside you, your laughter picking out the sun from the sky.

You smile, I recoil; this dream had better last, or start to fade soon.

You lift the slice of green dappled pear to your lips and your eyes widen at the burst of juicy sweetness.

"I have made this, here, it's for you."

It has been a long, dry time and I am grateful for your generous hands. I taste a tiny morsel of what you've laid out; I blanch and turn, it's too sweet after such a long hunger. Give me water, not sweet wine. I'll die of privation even in the land of milk and honey, retching in the sand. But you laugh, and pile my arms with fruits too strange too name. I blink, and am wreathed in a bower of berry. I mouth my small words of thanks, but you still the sound with your hands. And so I fall prey to your sugared sweets. You wipe honey and liquor from my chin with gentle fingers.

"A feast at the end of the world" you whisper and lean closer.

How you have found me here, at the end of the world, I cannot think to ask. I hoped only for silence, for distance.

I lean in and your lips meet mine, but you turn your face. In an instant I think to grasp the falling fruits, and I am alone and I am beneath the surface of the water.