The Pineapple That Took Away My Spring

Eternity had always been a heavy word. Yet it was featured within a common promise made, a vow for a couple to live happily together forever, till the day death tore them apart. When they spoke those solemn lines, bringing up the uncountable stretch of permanence, how much thought did they put into that sacred contract? For me, it was everything. I declared my undying love with everything I had.

That droplet, rich with sincerity, ended up falling into a bitter ocean, completely erased. This was how it ended, with a merciless pen dancing and swirling in the corner of my eyes, ignorant of any grand gestures trapped in the past. I didn’t feel the need to look directly at the documents, because why would I give them the legitimacy they don’t deserve? The divorce papers would only be ink and paper if not for the signatures on them: Verity Marshall and Leon Anders.

Strange, I didn’t remember writing my name. Those couldn’t be my words, just a crude imitation that happened to weasel its way there. Despite my suspicions, I knew for sure the other party would not hesitate to mock me if I raised the issue. I should bide my time…

Verity wrapped up the gathering with her overcomplicated signature. Her hand shifted in a way that seemed weightless, though her frown tethered her to the earthly plane. The mundanity didn’t last long; her expression outshone by her swaying feathery hair, silkier than any doll-maker could dream of, almost as if the strands were fake. No conditioner could take credit either; she had always been naturally dazzling.

But not at the moment. She displayed no radiance, ruined by an almost unbelievable level of detachment she chose to exhibit at this crossroad of our lives. A dark green T-shirt with jeans, as if this were another Thursday. Meanwhile, I spent hours agonizing over what to wear to this wretched meeting, ending up with one of those ridiculous business suits that I was always forced to put on during those irksome investor meetings. In any other circumstances, the outfit should have inoculated me against the torment.

Not when it came to her. Even the mere sound of her pen clattering on the desk was like a bellowing earthquake. She gazed at me with a forced smile. “Now, it is done.” With an edged caution, she slipped the documents into an envelope as if they were fragile sheets of glass. “I will give this to my lawyer.”

The look on her face resonated with images in my memory, a visage I had not seen since before we were married, as if she had once again returned from the horrors of a battlefield. One vivid thought crossed my mind, and I had no doubt about its validity.

“Who threatened you?” I asked. The most natural conclusion. Following it was a silent promise in my heart that I would look for the scumbag who hurt her, and destroy the threat as it stood. After that, we could get on with the happy life we deserved.

She didn’t break down and cry in my embrace; she didn’t sink onto the ground and beg for my help; she didn’t lower her head and whimper under her breath. The response I’d gotten was far from what should have been: sadness in her eyes twisted into contempt, clear in its target, a precise message intended for me.

But that cue meant nothing to me. She should have just told me the despicable culprit and been done with it. I was rich and influential enough to deal with anyone who dared to take the love of my life away, unless…

A growl lingered in my throat, and so I scanned the whole of Verity’s private study. This plain hexagonal space decorated only with stratified displays of books, with barely anything here that could give me a hint at the puzzle of her baffling behavior. That was until my inspection revealed to me a wretched shape.

Spiked skin topped by an explosive crown, resembling a beehive infested with leaves: a pineapple, blended itself in with the apples and grapefruits in a reed basket. I never trusted that fruit, so arrogant and extravagant, and those suspicions were proven to be entirely warranted. I felt like a detective singling out the real murderer in a mystery film. The picture of the truth had become clear, and so was a path to save Verity illuminated for me. An inexplicable warmth surged in my chest, flushing away the doubts in my heart.

Hurrying over to the reading table, I snatched the pineapple by its crown. Like a fisherman displaying his catch, I held out the fruit for Verity to see. Her expression shifted subtly; she might think I wouldn’t notice, but I did, because that was how deeply I understood her. That reaction alone was confirmation that I was on the right track.

“I wish to complete the divorce promptly.” She was so desperate to steer me away that she cited those soulless words. My mind foamed with rage. The tone of her speech was so familiar to the pure evil I had to face at my office every day. She really did know how to piss me off. She…

My attention crawled to the pineapple in my hands; I swore it was shivering in fear, for its schemes had been uncovered. It couldn’t hurt us anymore. Soothed by the realization that the threat had lost its fangs, I took a deep breath. Verity had no fault in this; she was also a victim.

Okay, I had collected my cool. Time for my next move. I raised the fruit and slammed it onto the ground. Verity didn’t flinch at all; maybe she was deeper in the brainwashing than I had expected.

The pineapple survived the impact. Not what I envisioned. I had to extinguish it completely. And so, I grabbed a nearby chair and steered its leg to stab into the pineapple. The resistance made me feel like I was poking at a set of armor, but eventually, the skin relented under the numerous stabs. The fruit split open into an unrefined pulp; its juices sprayed in all directions like blood, staining my flat-front trousers.

Any phony posers would have been inflamed by a blemish on their symbol of wealth, but the strangle in my heart was triggered by something else. The ostentation of my outfit was hammered home to me. What a disgrace that I resorted to using this immoral attire for protection. This wasn’t what a knight in shining armor would wear, but instead it would belong on the body of the demon that captured the princess.

But on second thought, my getup for the day wouldn’t matter in the long run. I wrestled my internal focus back to the mission of reuniting with my lover. Since the villain was defeated, everything should return to normal.

Nope. Something was still amiss. Her indifference overwhelmed the stale air. Lacking any affection that I had expected to receive, in its place was a silent judgment cast upon me, a spell that stirred only confusion in me.

“Verity-”

“You can leave now.” These four words punched me in the jaw before I could finish my sentence. I stared at the source of the demanding request. Verity’s expression had kept an eerie consistency throughout my crusade. The more my eyes traced her features, the more I was certain that she hadn’t broken free from the influence of…

“Pineapple. You were poisoned by pineapple, weren’t you?” I raised my finger to point at Verity, just as Sherlock Holmes would when he uncovered the true culprit of a crime. To respond to my accusations, she raised an eyebrow, evidently surprised at how I disclosed her predicament so elegantly.

“Excuse me?”

“We don’t have to separate anymore. I will protect you from pineapples from now on.”

“This is why I said we should have signed this at the law firm.”

“Give me the envelope, Verity. I’ll burn it for you.” My extended hand was an offer, that we should forget this episode and continue our fairy-tale ending. With the pedantic bookshelves as our witnesses, our vows could be restated anew. I could almost feel rose petals fluttering between us. Another precious moment to be remembered.

Verity scratched her head, probably a headache induced by the acidity of that horrible ‘painapple’. “I really didn’t want to do this.”

Aha! I was right. She was forced. Luckily, my passionate appeal got through to her. I expected her to hand those vile documents over any second. But that didn’t happen. My patience was stretched thin as my arm, and a nagging hunch told me to snatch the envelope from her directly. And I should have listened to that inner guidance.

She shifted over to the side of the room, but not trying to escape. I knew that because I had positioned myself near the door since the start of our confrontation, all so she wouldn’t make an unsalvageable mistake. Casually, as if we were just having afternoon tea, she slid open one of the cabinets and took out a black stick. Her thumb traced across a button, and the other end of the weapon sparked with a buzz.

“Will you listen to me now?” Verity said. Her voice fell deeper into lethargy. I wondered if the fruit had drained more of her strength. Sweat gathered on my back. The pineapple had a tighter grip on her than I thought.

That won’t do. I can’t lose her here.

I ground my derby shoe into the mangled remains of the evil fruit. A desperate attempt to remove its hold on Verity, but this act wouldn’t change the outcome. The truth was that the pineapple responsible had already dissolved within Verity’s gut, puppeteering her from the inside. If I had a medical degree, maybe I could consider cutting her open. But I didn’t. Thanks to most of my time being wasted dealing with money-hungry pigs, I had a limited skill set and therefore a limited selection of options to defuse the situation.

I could only watch as Verity’s eyelids seemed to harden, as if pinned in place by invisible tacks. Her pupils twitched in their emptiness, ready to expand any second and conquer the innocent sclera. The stun baton became an extension of her arm, its hissing glint mocking me.

This couldn’t be Verity.

The electric tip was some distance away from me, but the shock still seemed to have bled through my skin, granting an opening for inner demons to replace my volition, the reflex February had instilled within me over the years. A wide smile crept over my face; my hands raised up without my permission, pleading for my already-obvious innocence.

“I don’t mean any harm. I just hope you would reconsider.” I said in the same annoying tone that Verity used. Every syllable crinkled up the walls of my stomach; at one point, I even wondered if there was a little person within knitting my innards into a sweater. My prim mannerisms sure wouldn’t communicate any of the turmoil within. After all, this was the putrid skin I had worn in the business world for so many years.

I hate myself.

“You don’t have to hope for anything. Just leave.” There wasn’t an ounce of sympathy in Verity’s voice, closer to a definite tolling of a clock tower, a decree that I no longer had any right to exist here.

I glanced again at the defeated yellow adversary, only finding the mush splattered on the floor more distant than before. Whatever emotions I had thrown its way, I didn’t remember any of them. The fruit slipped snugly into its role as an innocent, and any relevance it had to me rapidly evaporated into nothing.

Then, vertigo seeped through my being as if I were spinning. Seeking to steady myself, I threw out a question. “Did our wedding vows mean nothing to you at all?”

“Are you seriously asking me this?” She wouldn’t even concede a simple ‘yes’ to me. No matter; it would all be fixed after I found out the true reason she wanted to divorce me. That would be further down the line. A battle for another day, when I could find a crack that would reveal what had been driving her to give up her happiness.

With heavy steps, my legs hauled me to the foyer. Verity trailed behind at an ample distance, so that any of my potential attacks could be neutralized by her trusty baton. Before shutting me outside, she had to rub pepper in my wound, as she said with utmost pretentious courtesy: “Leon, I wish you a good life.”

“What we had was exactly that.” My throat was so dry that I couldn’t recognize my voice.

“No. What we had was a foolish dream.” She slammed the door before I could get another word in. The air squeezed out by the impact splattered against my face like cold water, and I might not have even blinked at that. I couldn’t remember. I also couldn’t remember how much longer I froze before I moved to a more secluded location to stake out her house.

Spring was in full bloom, which meant plenty of lush hiding spots. I burrowed myself into the soft leaves, unbothered by the damage the branches might do to my suit. There was no reason for me to compromise my goals for silly economic reasons. Lying in wait, I peeled my eyes at the front door, firm and resolved.

In the end, my patience didn’t pan out, and that traitor February came to pick me up. Verity must have called him. It was a while later before I realized a pineapple might not be the cause of Verity’s actions. But by then, her love wasn’t precious to me anymore. Something else filled the bounds of my soul; granted by a goddess, my true preordained purpose: to save the world.