I wish I had a peach tree. Or maybe just a peach.

Today in the early morning I was on a walk with my baby boy on my back.

We saw a peach fallen from someone’s tree.

I wanted to eat it.

I also wanted the lady who owned the house to come out in a house dress and curlers and blue lips, screaming and threatening to cast a spell on me if I took one teeny tiny bite. 

I wanted the spell to horrible. 

I wanted to plead with her that I thought she wouldn’t mind. That I hadn’t eaten for days. That the other baby in my belly was a girl and I’d heard that girls need peaches to come out sweet.

I wanted the lady to tell me that her peaches were made of tears and heartbreak and molasses and anyone who ate them would have a life of sadness and misery and only crumbles of joy.

I wanted to hold the peach to my lips and watch as her hand trembled.

I wanted to open my mouth and feel the fur on my tongue, taste the nothing of the peel and imagine the juice that would spray once I bit. 

I wanted her to cry. Don’t do it.

Don’t do it.

Don’t do it.

And then I wanted to . . . 

 

What would you do? What would your MC do? And what would happen afterwards? And what if a semi-truck came along right then and splashed mud and water all over the both of you and she shrunk into a puddle of green and you grew into a Christmas tree with a baby in your belly and baby on your back and every year people would come decorate you and tell the tale of the woman and her two babies who dared to almost eat the peach from the evil woman who lived in the house with the curlers and the house dresses and the trembling hand that gave everything away? 

What would you do?