Happy new week all! Over the weekend I banished all thought of rocks, paper or shotguns and volunteered to pick apples at a local orchard. Many wonderful varieties were carefully netted, then jumbled together in a huge mesh bag: speckled golden sours, fit to devour immediately with an appreciative grimace; jolly green cookers, wearing their scabs like medals of honour; sharp little reds that slice up into the clearest white wedges. Such intoxicating fruit! As we blundered around with poles and hard hats, we trampled on dozens of fallen, rotting apples, spicing the air with a sickly pungence.

It was then that I saw it: the juiciest apple of all, dangling almost within grabbing distance in a peculiar depth of shade, beneath a tree of somehow abyssal provenance – its leaves salt-rimed and its roots akin to sunken steel anchors. I reached and the apple danced back a metre, becoming luminous. By its light, I perceived the slow parting of enormous crystal fangs. Damn it, Maw! I am trying to pick apples in peace. It’s just as well I’ve brought a second mesh bag of new PC games to feed you.

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