The End of Sweet Plums
The season of sweet plums has passed— the season is over.
Only shrunken, wrinkled, pale plums are left.
The woman at the produce-stand smirks at me over boxes of withered plums. “They’re organic,” she says. “Natural things have seasons. Natural things go bad.”
Something moves in her grey dreadlocks — a black centipede arching its back and flailing at the air with red antennae.
I back away and merge into the shuffling street-market crowd. After a few steps I look over my shoulder.
The woman is watching me. As she smiles a wide, broken-toothed smile, the centipede skitters down her face and slithers into her mouth.
