The vestibule has a thick, strange smell. Something chemical but musty, like a fabric cleaner or how I would imagine a rug store to smell. It wraps around my head like a scarf as I pass through the lobby doors. On the other side, I step onto the street into the oven of the city. The heat is oppressive, the sun rubbing against my skin. The excessive warmth blankets me in its embrace and even as I feel that gentle burning sensation across my skin, even as my sweat glands begin to activate, I drink it in eagerly.
At the crosswalk, I step in front of the decorative iron bollard and lean against it like a wall, staring across the street at the little orange hand. I lean back over its rounded top and stretch my back out, torso bending and chin pointing up at the empty blue sky. The sun beats down on my skin, bouncing off into a million ribbons of photons. In the shade, there’s a huge white pigeon bobbing around and I watch it hobble on its little orange feet as I pass, chittering at it in a high-pitched voice.
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In my office, I begin to eat my third miniature orange. I squish the soft flesh of the fruit against my teeth and jolt as something crunches between them. These days the only unexpected seed in my mouth comes from an orange. I spit out the hard, crushed kernel onto a napkin and can’t help but think of my former lover. I think of how he would look down on me for the things that I liked, judge me for the things that I struggled with, and not once did I ever love him any less. I think of the silly little naked-dance he would always do for me and the way his eyes morphed from bright and round to slitted lines shadowed by lashes, the way his eyebrows pulled together and his lips puffed out when he got ‘cute aggression’ while looking at me, how he would grip my head in his hands and smother me with damp kisses until I couldn’t breathe.
I think of the many expressions I’ve put on his face—adoration, joy, disgust, pleasure, confusion, pain, anger. I look down at my hands, at the tips of my fingernails yellowed from the orange peel and think of the boy I first met and the one who walked out my door and wonder if I’m the one who turned him into something so different, if I made him into a stranger never to be seen again…
I pull the fourth orange out of the bag, dig my fingernails deep into its flesh, and begin to methodically tear its delicate skin away.