This is My First Story, Enjoy!!
How To Eat A Peach
First you have to make sure you get a good peach. So you go down to the veggie section of your local grocery store and wade through the little old ladies thumping cantaloupes find the peaches. They're often stuck in those weird little half-bubbles of green plastic that they get shipped in. So you look at the peaches and, I don't know, pick one you think is pretty or something. Pick it up and squeeze it lightly. If your fingers leave a dent, it's perfect.
While you carry the peach up to the checkout lane, think about eating peaches, when you were a kid, with your grandpa. Remember how he taught you which peaches were the best. Remember how your mother always yelled at you for eating them, saying you were going to eat a worm and get sick. But you and your grandpa used to sneak out and eat them anyway.
Almost trip over that old lady who wheels her cart out in front of you without peeking around the corner to check and see if someone's coming, first. Smile sweetly and tell her it's ok while thinking about shoving the peach down her wrinkly old throat. Walk around her and continue to the front of the store to pay for your peach. Listen to the baby scream in the next aisle over and wish the mother would just make it hush. Laugh as you read the headlines of the rag mags that proclaim "Jesus' Face Seen In Bank Window!" Pick one up about a bat boy and think about buying it for the sheer laughs it will get you, then dig through the change in your pocket and put it down. You only have enough money for the peach. Move ahead a few steps while the old man bagger works slow as molasses in January.
Finally pay for you peach and walk out the store to the mess of cars outside and try to remember where you left yours. Walk down the first row you come to because you figure it's as good a place to start as any. Look at all the grandma cars with their flags and fake, sun-bleached flowers and tennis balls on the antennas. Wonder why you haven't put one on your car yet, you lose it all the time. Laugh to yourself as you imagine your little Prelude with a tennis ball stuck on the antenna. Spot your car in the next row over and cut in between a beat-up old '73 Caddy with kid's toys scattered across the back seat, and a brand-new forest green (your favorite color) Mercedes. Think about how your grandpa always wanted a Mercedes but never had the money for one. Factory workers don't retire on much. Let that lady with the screaming kid go first, you figure if it's still screaming, she's about two seconds from throttling it and decide it'd be best if she hurried on her way.
Park your car under your apartment complex's carport and walk up the flight of stairs to your apartment. 2B. It used to amuse you that you got that apartment, "2B or not 2B?" that was the question. But you've lived there too long for the amusement to hit you any longer. Open the door and walk past the living room with its worn armchair and couch (they don't match, you got them from the Salvation Army when you first moved in here and just haven't changed them yet) and set the peach down on the kitchen table. Check for messages and listen to one from your mother asking when you're coming to visit, you haven't in a while. Erase the message and promise yourself you'll call tomorrow.
Sit down at the kitchen table and finger the peach, remembering when you and your mom and dad used to go visit your grandparent's house. You used to get along so well. Your mom and grandma would be in the kitchen cooking dinner, you dad would be watching the game and you and your grandpa would sneak out to the peach tree. You weren't supposed to eat peaches, let alone right before dinner. But your grandpa was great.
Get up from the chair and cross the kitchen to the utensil drawer. It only takes three steps. Reach in and pick out a parer. It's a hand-me-down from your mother's utensil drawer. It was your favorite parer. Wander back to the kitchen table and sit for a minute staring at the peach. Pick up the peach and make the first cut. Right through the dent at the top that makes that ridge all along the top half of the peach. Turn the peach slowly, thinking about how your grandpa always used to talk with you about the adventures he'd had. He had been a paratrooper in the second World War, and he had backpacked across Europe right at the end of the war. He had gone to a survival camp for a few months and begun to learn how to tan hides and hunt and butcher his own kills (this was before he met your grandma. They got married late in life. He'd started everything late). All you've done is get a clerical job in Dewar's Law Firm right out of college. It seemed like a good job, with room for advancement, then. You're thirty-two years old, no husband, don't even have a cat. You work, you shop, you come home and eat, watch some television, go to sleep and start over again in the morning. Day in and day out your life is the same boring cycle.
Slice the peach and take out the pit. You used to try to start new peach trees with the pits. Your grandpa humored you and helped you take care of them, telling you each time they didn't take that it must not be that pit's time to grow. He'd tickle you then, and you'd both walk back up to the house and get a bowl of your grandma's homemade ice cream.
Hold the pit in your hands as you eat the slices. Turn it around a few times and then look at the small windowsill above your kitchen sink. Pull out one of the plastic cups you've gotten coffee in and use the tip of a knife to poke four holes in the sides. Find the toothpicks and fit them through the holes. Fill the cup with water and place the peach pit on the toothpicks so that the lower half is below the level of the water. Carefully place the cup back on the windowsill where the late afternoon sun bathes it gently in warm light. Sit down in the living room and pull out the newspaper and start going through the job section of the classifieds.
Questions: Be as detailed as you can! THANKS!!!
- Do you think I should give a description of how the peach tastes?
- Is there anything you'd like to hear more about?
- Anything you'd like to hear less about?
- Do you think the ending is too weak?
- Do you have any ideas for a new ending if you DO think it's too weak?
- What do you like best about the story?
- What do you like least about the story?
- Do you like the style of the story, the How-To Book?
- Do you feel I give enough detail in the main character's life?
- Do you think I give too much detail?
- Do you think the MC's personality stays the same thought the story?
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