Pulp

The summer Levi heard about Ray Lewis going missing was a good mango summer. That was one of the only things he remembered about it really. Watching the news and the broadcasts and listening on the radio as he stood, elbow deep in mango pulp and stickiness. The knife, blade gleaming, slicing through the skin as though it were the softest thing in the world, sun kissed and just perfectly coloured. That’s how you knew they were ripe. And that smell, just short of too sweet but lovely enough that you wanted to bathe in it and feel it under your fingertips all the time. Perfection. After the first few cuts you get into a habit. One cheek then the other, scooping them out of their skins and slicing around the parts the knife couldn’t get to. With fingers barely gripping in their pulpy slick Levi would pack them tight into containers and stack the freezer in a tower of brightness to last him through the winters where mangoes never grew.

As he sliced another and heard the news anchor tell him about the man who disappeared without a trace Levi was thinking about cracking open those boxes of frozen goodness a few months from now and blending them into deliciousness for lunchtimes when it was too hot to chew your food. He made another slice, packed another container and, feeling the edge of his blade dulling, washed it under the tap, watching the stringy pulp vanish down the sink in a pattern of thready fibres. Levi sharpened the knife in front of the window, with the TV in the background and thought about what next year’s harvest might bring.