The Orange

The orange’s skin resembles the scaly dinosaur exterior we’re all taught to believe actually existed during the age of the dinosaur reign, if that’s in fact what they did. This orange by default will dominate the memory of Dalia Merchant. She saw this orange for the first time in a vision. On a tree, backlit, protruding from a mountain side like a bonsai. Though it wasn’t a bonsai, it was an orange tree. A waterfall in the background, probably symbolizing her sexuality, since you know the human mind is quite typical in that way. As she daydreamed, her physical body stood facing a tall, standing boy. He stroked her hair and she pressed her cheek against his chest. A full moon that could not be seen. Standing together on a bridge over the Chicago river, the nighttime sky presented a blank, romantic canvas for love’s proclamations. Maybe not blank, the cloud cover above blanketed Earth from space and no star’s light poked through. He wanted to tell her “I love you, Dalia” but instead he said that “It is always there, and one day you wake up to it. Like a sleeping giant,” …and so love exists but must be discovered like Columbus did America, or something foolish like that, a debunked myth.

She thought of this orange tree, always thinking. The image, a solid mountain and an overwhelming shape bursts forth this life that, under the right conditions, will grow and thrive, and die of course. Love is a life cycle. That should never be forgotten, she remembered. This orange tree grows, will bear more trees from the pit of its fruit, the leaves will shrivel and the fruit will ripen and sour. One can only hope that the waterfall never dries and the mountain only grows. These trees, this tree, exists and is necessary. Even though the mountain and the waterfall would exist just fine without it, that is not nature’s way. Who is to say what stays and goes? The tree is there, she did not decide it so, it is just there. Instead of wondering what would happen if it wasn’t there, wishing it wasn’t there, anticipate the mourning of its death, she will pick of its fruit and enjoy it. Maybe even tend to it so that she may be quenched by the vision again.

The boy heard her mutter a few words about the tree, but he could not understand. She whispered, “listen” and left him again for the depths of her mind. How magical that she could find the peace of love within her brain. The symbol for this elusive love she sought and fretted over was available at any moment she desired it. This place she found served as an organic museum of the ebb and flow of love imagined.

*painting by Joyce Frances Devlin