apple pie

No one knew exactly how it happened. Veronica had been staring at the ceiling, exhausted from her boredom, thinking of how badly she could go for a 32oz bottle of papaya juice when the idea wedged its way into her cerebral cortex. 

“Four fuji apples and a roll of toilet paper.”

She sat up slightly onto her elbows. The thought repeated. 

“Four fuji apples and a roll of toilet paper”

Something about this idea smashed forcibly into the others. As a clear visitor, its demands echoed calmly through the hallways of her intuition, silencing the chirping chatter of her otherwise overactive brain. 

She stood from her mess of empty sketch pages and checked both cupboards. There they were. Four fuji apples and a roll of toilet paper.... Curious.

Embarrassed and slightly stunned, Veronica found herself moments later, gawking awkwardly at her neighbor’s front door holding four fuji apples and a roll of toilet paper, messily bundled in a band T-shirt. 

She regarded the front door for a moment longer, too confused to find the beginning of her questions.

*

Nineteen hours later as the sun pulled itself into a new morning sky, to every resident of the surrounding neighborhood’s surprise, a small bundle of items awaited them on their doorstep - each containing a random assortment of items that they had felt a desperate need to secure the morning prior. 

As if some collective holiday wish had fallen from the sky and shattered into fifty-two tiny pieces, this shared impulse had been evenly dispersed among strangers.

Veronica lifted her box of colored pencils and a 32oz bottle papaya juice. 

“Right on.”

*

In the top room of a small duplex, Veronica sat, savoring her drink. The creativity surging through the back of her triceps. 

A gulp of juice.

A tear of a new sheet

A scribble of color.

A new work began.

*

In a neighboring windowsill, settled by the afternoon breeze, a fresh apple pie sat, cooling.

-b

April 24, 2020