Missing Apple

The halls were overflowing with your scent: sharp apple tinged with pear. Yet no matter where I looked, you could not be found. I had every room searched: among the tankards, the office, amidst the barrels of wine and hardening cider, but nothing came up. There was no note, no evidence of where you had gone to, or why.

“That smell is just the workshop,” my wife hissed late at night, when I told her you had gone. “It isn’t her at all. If I’d never met the lady myself, I wouldn’t believe you she existed.”

Oh, she is a harsh, unattractive woman; but she has been kind to me, and understanding of the relationship you and I had together; as I have always been of hers with the kitchen boy. But now I am worried. She and I have not kissed or touched in years, and I have no other whims; you are the wine glass among the beer mugs, my dainty martini every night at midnight, and I care not for any red or white wines or burgundys. I worry about the last time I saw you, the lines on your face, the swelling in your stomach that was like a fruit ripening on the vine. Did you fall from the tree? Did you roll away from the embarassment, thinking that I would toss you away, my rotten apple?

I spend my nights in the apple orchards, among your favorite granny smiths, and prepare a bed on which to sleep, with a canopy above, and I wait. Especially here, I can smell you; sharp apple and a sprinkle of pear, everywhere except in my arms.