The Romantic and the Realist's Orchard Morning

Descriptive Writing

He locked his bicycle on the racks, his face still refreshingly wet from the embracing and visible moistness of the early morning dew. He stood upright under the brick arched roof of the terrace, gazing out at the ripe, almost sensual, garden before him.

It was a small rectangular blotch of vivid green grass, subdued to the greyness of the morning air above it. Two apple trees rose up, their nudity only serving to expose the strength of their limbs. And all around them, on the ground, breaking the green-grey and adding contrast, lay a wave of pink-cream apples. In that small patch were all the wonders of an idyllic summer sunset - even more than that actually, it seemed to him that the apples on the grass were like reflections of sunset off the foam of ocean waves. He could almost hear it.

He stayed and took in the moment, but only for a moment... And just as he was about to leave, a tenor-pitched snap followed by a muffled thump stopped him on his tracks. He smiled at the Newtonian experience and decided to stand there for a few seconds longer. It almost felt as if he was in a conversation with nature herself, and she had just begonned him not to leave.

He let the image boldly imprint itself in his eyes, and, though he did not know it, in his eyes the reality of the picture acquired meaning in existence. He left, head held high and mind sailing in the breeze of the beautiful.

---

The violent clunking of keys broke the silence. With a sudden movement he jerked the door open and rushed outside into the non-claustric air. The door banged onto its adjacent wall and then started its creaking glide back to close again. Walking up and down on the terrace he nervously lit his cigarette. This was his one pleasure, his dirty escape, and he knew it. The world was slowly killing him and he felt it was his personal privilege to partake in this crime.

But also, just to be true to the character of this smoker, when he believed the 'world was killing him', he did not mean that some unworldly spirit was draining the life force out of him. To the contrary, it was the normal things that were killing him - it was people and their expectations, their malevolent smiles and their calculated reactions. He firmly knew all this - "there is no hope; there is no hope because there is no god. We are all just accidents, self-interested machinating organisms. Everything is slime, gutter, and rot." And he knew he was no exception in this constant never ending fight where the pendulum only swings from overt aggression to hypocritical calculations of peacefulness.

Pout. Suck. Inhale. Swallow. Stay. Exhale, smoke swirling to the golden ratio as an almost imperceptible wheeze stabs at the air in shrill manic bouts. He paused a while between drags, inspecting his surroundings. He was always aware of what was around him - the constant feeling of being threatened would not have it any other way. But this time, he also took time to actually notice some of it. In particular, he noticed two sickly trees that had dropped basketfulls of apples.

The custard-red cream peels made his stomach stir and rise to clutch at his breath. Against the background of the cement sky, these pastel coloured fruit reminded him of hospital interiors. At the same time, below this spread of surface there hid nature's processes of decay. Worms wriggling within, eating away and forming intestine-like tunnels on their way. Flies regurgitating and slurping. In addition, the self-destructing process of maturity and over-ripeness. All together culprits in nature's war against itself.

With time, soon enough, this hospital scenery would transform itself into a morgue of sweet swamp mush, the last remains of these fruit. One last drag and he flicked the cigarette butt into space. Again he looked at the scenery. In a way it was like looking in a mirror. He breathed heavily, smoke residue still leaving his lungs and blurring the view as it slowly rose in almost imperceptible swirling lines. Enough. He slowly walked back towards the door, opened it, entered, and the door slowly closed on its own.

Reviews

[POeticPotato]

Your imagery was as vivid as it was effective, and I really liked how you used it to convey the emotions of the main character. At the start, the description of the scene is overly idealistic, and perhaps excessive, and may foreshadow the frustration of the main character, that he would force himself to buy into an impossible perfection in order to escape the painful reality that hits him square in the face when he enters his house.

It was a very good read, and I found the perspective you conveyed with it particularly interesting.