Rotten Fruit Season

Marcus sat on the edge of the bed watching baseball highlights flicker across the television, the cable connection fuzzy after last night's storm. Another losing season. His phone buzzed—Elena again. He'd been ignoring her calls since Tuesday, since she'd told him she was sleeping with someone else. Someone successful. Someone who didn't spend his Friday nights drinking lukewarm beer and watching replays of games he'd taped years ago.

The papaya sat on the counter where she'd left it, its skin already yielding to the touch, fermenting in the apartment's stifling heat. She'd brought it home from that Caribbean grocery on 5th, excited about some recipe she'd wanted to try. Now it was just another thing they'd never get to, another small death in a year of them.

He should throw it away. He should throw everything away.

His father used to call him bull-headed—the way he'd refused to quit baseball after the injury, refused to accept that sometimes things just break and don't get fixed. Forty-two years old and still waiting for his comeback.

The sunset through the dirty window turned everything orange—her abandoned yoga mat, the empty picture frame she'd never let him fill, the papaya beginning to weep onto the countertop. He thought about calling her. He thought about asking whether the new guy made her laugh the way he used to, before everything between them had become so heavy with expectation and disappointment.

Instead he picked up the papaya. It gave beneath his fingers like something living, something that had tried its hardest and failed. He carried it to the garbage can and let it drop with a soft, wet sound. Then he turned off the television and sat in the growing dark, listening to the couple next door laugh at something he couldn't hear, something that wasn't his business anymore.