Fruit of the Tree Travis Radford

Fruit of the Tree

Travis Radford @travis_radford1

Plums spilling from chequered cloth; they tumble from the tableside. Caught in the open palms of guests. Oh, Don! A shrill voice pretends to be offended, igniting a daisy chain of laughs. Bubbles float and rise from overflowing glasses, showering the moment in joy - the tabletop stained with revelry. Thalia smiles wryly at the antics, wiping a drop of champagne from her lip and reclining in her seat, waiting for the sun and horizon to meet and another evening of celebrations to begin.

When later the night dares show its pale round face, the stars are stolen from the sky, pulled down on strings to adorn the house’s many rooms and smother any darkness in its sleep. From her second-storey room, Thalia sits propped against the foot of her bed, watching as any sign of the day’s end is wrapped in sparkling lights, in this piece of the world where night is never allowed to fall. She stands from her waking slumber and glides to an open wardrobe filled with only white dresses. Taking one in her hands, she pauses before the dresser’s mirror, admiring her beauty before putting it on. Silver hair plaited down to her waist, and blue eyes so striking they steal the colour from any room. With the white dress on, she becomes another of the party’s earthbound stars, warding off any cruel memory from before.

An orchestral tune takes charge of the silence, inviting all downstairs. Reds and greens cover every inch of the house’s interior – beams, stairwells and window panes all joined together to taunt the exeunt night. Christmas time. Not in date, but in spirit. A luminous Thalia, dress inscribed with the light’s majesty, enters a mood beyond reproach. Moving in slow-motion, partygoers’ exaggerated smiles rock back and forth on animated faces bathed in lights and love. Thalia steps forward into the protection of the adoring crowd. Ready.

Smiles widen, eyes transfix, and crystal-cut collisions cease. Room made for hushed words and promiscuous winks. The perfect nothing. Feet obeying the orchestra’s rhythm, Thalia is carried across the painted room. Carried into his arms. Words discarded and retinas ablaze. A shared glance. A question.

Can I be your tomorrow?

Fast-beating hearts synchronised; faces instinctively meet and tongues word feelings never told. The walls breathe heat into the room and an ambience wrapped in layers of affection reassures the fate of this moment. Wonder flows through the room like water, its current pulling lovers’ bodies back to their flooded bedrooms. Here, tangled limbs rejoice, silk fingertips dancing atop one another in a craze to live, until sleep finally arrives - late again.

When morning comes, she gingerly rouses her sleeping babes, stroking their foreheads with soft-burning light. She asks they join the parrots practicing their symphonies, singing thanks to the earthly haven. Still encased in the arms of another, hands conjoined, Thalia lies adoring summer’s rising sun. A whisper embalmed in love falls from his mouth like soft rain. Good morning. With it a smile promising her day will never again turn to night. Together, they emerge from

the night’s chrysalis, peeling the comfortable casing from their bodies, they spread their wings and join the others in the spotless sky.

Outside, the day’s ritual is repeated, as halcyon’s disciples gather for worship - the tables their altars, and the orchard’s bounty their idols. Thalia, with a wicker basket in one hand and her lover’s hand in the other, skips between the harvest’s plenty. The supple curves of a plum seduce her eye and foot. Thumbing her way along the stem toward the tree’s brilliant purple-red offerings, her eyes veiled by the hands of another - she giggles magnetically, the gleeful tune leading the bird’s daytime orchestra. Thalia takes the fruit from the earth’s protection into her own. The curtains around her eyes draw open – rebirthing her into an enchanted world, as vibrant and perfect as the plum’s blemishless skin.

Slipping from her grasp, the fruit tumbles to the ground.

Juice gushes from its collapsed body; dying the ends of Thalia’s dress red. Kneeling before the plum, his cleft chin pointed in its direction, Thalia’s company turns the fruit over in his hands, exposing marbled brown flesh. He throws it to the ground, stumbling to his feet and straightening his coat, hastily pulling Thalia into the banquet’s comfort.

Another day-long feast turns into another day-long night. Another beautiful party and another even more beautiful dress. Thalia strides across her chamber’s floor, noticing for the first time the boards creaking beneath her feet. And from the corner of the room, the steady tick of a clock. Growing louder with each passing second. At her dresser, she paces restlessly, a crack on the mirror’s edge obscuring her beauty. Running fingers along the fissure, as if to seal it with her touch - the

orchestra begins its nightly summons before there is time.

Blanketed in white, the dance floor’s attendants move as a collective, rising and dipping under the spell of the conductor’s wand. Thalia joins the entranced crowd, tiring faster than usual. She surfaces to gulp in the atmosphere, no longer sweet, but stale and steeped in sweat. There she notices him alone. On his coat she points to a missing button and an empty thread. He points to her still-stained dress. Retreating upstairs to bed, they try to smooth away the rough edges from beneath another layer of white, and for the first time, sleep comes early.

Her joints stiff and breath pronounced, the night wakes Thalia from the day’s medicine with its sobering chill. The room engulfed in shadows, all lights have been put out, and all switches broken from the walls. A window ajar, lets in the dull glow of moonlight. Beneath its sill, silver buttons look like fallen stars, and on the ledge beneath the starless sky, her lover. The bleeding shadows of the night’s henchmen claw sharp, grotesque murmurs from his mouth. Spitting up lightning, he recites the unbearable deafening lyrics from before - words that live on only in the unlit creases of the past. A darkness that cannot be extinguished. He leaps into the night. Blue bleeds from Thalia’s eyes and the red stain climbs from dress to skin. Surging through wrinkled canyons, it undoes plaits and turns silver to grey, taking tooth from mouth and ripping skin from bone. The mirror refuses to look.

The door opens without sound, letting light back into the room. Unfamiliar and strange, Thalia finds her world trapped on walls and inside cabinets, imprisoned in ornate dusty frames. A comfortable smile receives her terrified stare. The woman removes a

a torch from her pocket, scaring the shadows dancing behind Thalia’s eyes. Helping her into an empty bed, she places the end of her steel necklace onto Thalia’s racing heart.

Let’s get ya back to sleep, Thal. How ‘bout one o’ them instrumental records you’re always listening to?

“Smiles widen, eyes transfix, and crystal-cut collisions cease. Room made for hushed words and promiscuous winks. The perfect nothing.”