Red Fruit

I stood there, naked, before squatting and plucking a fresh tomato from an overly abundant tomato plant that hadn't been tended to in a very long time. I bit into it - it was so juicy, its water ran over my lips and down my chin and into my beard where it never escaped.

Out of the blue, a stranger approached. He looked at me, disgusted by my state of undress. "For fuck sake, don't you have any decency!"

"Why should I? Does my nudity offend you?"

"As a matter of fact, it does."

"Then I say be offended. The great part about the end of the world is that even if I offend you, to whom will you report the offense? No one. They are gone. Because of that, I no longer have to give a shit about who I offend."

"And what if I threaten to kill you?"

"What if you do?"

"You'll have to do what I ask then."

"Will I?"

"You will if you want to keep your life. I imagine you enjoy it, right?"

"I do. But it bears no consequence on what I want to do. And what I want to do is be naked. So, kill me if you wish. Either way, I will die doing as I like."

He pulled out a polished bowie knife from its sheath and walked towards me. I stood up and took another massive bite of my tomato - licking the flesh free of any extra liquid. Waste not, want not.

He didn't stop until he had the point of the blade pressed against my chin. He had conviction - all men do, at the end of the world. The blade pierced me a little - though not deep enough to cause any real damage. I doubted as to whether it might get infected if I survived this interlude. Probably not.

The piercing hadn't been caused by direct intent but because he wavered with a near unnoticeable tremble. "And now?"

"And now, what?"

"And now, you will do as I ask and cover yourself up."

"Is that so?" I pulled my head away from the blade just to stuff the rest of the tomato mouth, chew it then swallow it. I had been quite parched before finding it. So my mouth welcomed the slight bitterness of the fruit, as long as it got to drink with it. I then returned my chin to the blade and offered a yellow-toothed, shit-eating grin for good measure.

"Yes." He dug the blade in a little bit further. "Otherwise, I will be forced to kill you. And I have taken enough life already."

Looking him in the eye, I spoke. "You haven't taken much life at all, if any."

He didn't have to say it. His eyes spoke of what little innocence might be left in this world. But he still let out a few words either way. "You have no idea what you are talking about."

"Don't I?"

"I have had to kill over a dozen men to save my own skin." Again the waver, blood started to pool around the wound. He needed me to believe him.

"The likelihood of you finding twelve men to defend yourself from is about as likely as finding twelve women to make to love to. I myself haven't seen anyone in over ten years. And I travel far and count the days."

"I travel far as well. And there are more people alive than you may believe - more than enough to add up to my dozen victims."

"Whether there are or not makes no difference to me - I've never much cared for people. I had been forced to walk around in a world in which the greatest kindness I ever got shown by anyone was indifference before the Messiah Virus brought about its great cleansing. As a pervert by secret, I got exposed to the light by one of my earliest victims. This revelation cost me my career, family, and goals, which I spent almost twenty years achieving. Upon losing everything, I was rendered homeless and without any means of finding any support for myself. Because once people see the monster for what he finally is, they have no desire to help him. Only the most pitiful food banks and halfway houses would have pity on me - and only if I agreed to go through their rigorous counseling to help me with my deviant nature. All of which I agreed to because you'd be surprised what you'd agree to when you're hungry. But even with this help, there came reactions when my fellow boarders found out what I was. And no matter how much I tried to be kind to them, let's just face it, I always had to sleep with one eye open. That's really no way for anyone to live – not even a pervert. We all deserve the chance to be as we are, and we all deserve the chance to feel safe every once in a while. But because of what I am, the world before the virus refused to let me have any of it. So, when I learned that my family had died, my ex-colleagues had died, and the people I used to call friends had died, along with every stranger whom I had ever managed to pass on the street, I made a vow to myself. A vow that from then until the end of my days, I would live for no one else's pleasure but my own, as there was no one else's pleasure to live for anyway. And this new world affords me the ability to hold true to that vow."

He stared at me. I stared at him. The only difference between us lie in how if death had finally come for me, that I would face it with the fearless recognition of how I am what I am. And death or no death wasn't going to change that.

"If you're going to kill me, may I ask that you do it rather sooner than later? Because if you're not going to do it, I would like to get to where I'm going."

"And where is that exactly? There's nothing left!" Realizing I was no threat to him, as much as I disgusted him, he put his knife back in his sheath.

"Not so." I squared my legs and crossed my arms behind my back. "Though it may not be the same fare as before, there is still food to be eaten and beds to sleep in which haven't become the permanent resting places of the lost. That is enough for me."

"Not me. Never me. Not until the world is back the way it was."

I turned around, knelt, and plucked two tomatoes off the plant – one for me and one for him. I lifted up his hand and put a tomato in it. "You're what, twenty-five, thirty at the oldest? The virus did its job over fifteen years ago – the world is becoming more and more of what it was before us. And before long, it will be that way again. So best to enjoy what's here. . . What's now." I closed his hand around it and gave his hand a good squeeze – not enough to crush the tomato, but to help them realize how the simplicity of the little pleasure he held in his hand was what little this new world might allow him to enjoy. "Because this is what we have now. We have the world, and we have ourselves as we truly are without a sense of law to guide us towards rightness. We are right in all we do, as we are the only judges left, who still hold sway over our actions, and who can still deliver punishments if necessary." I then turned away from him and started off in the direction from whence he came – hopefully to never see him again.

The End