wildscape. literary journal

Airless Things Never Decay
by Raymond Trunk

A year before my grandmother died she sealed 
             an avocado in an airtight bag to prove airless things 
never decay. That next October she died over barmbrack 
             and medical bills—papers stroked with bold words 
like ischemic and past due date. But the week before 
             she had asked me if work was going okay. I told her I’ve never 
worked, only school, and she laughed without telling me
             why it was funny. I gave her Tylenol so we’d both swallow 
something that night. Five years before, she told me to record 
             the Giants game for my father as an act of appreciation & one month
later, he deleted it from the DVR: I should stop keeping things 
             that take up space. So ten minutes before my grandmother died, I ran 
from her deathbed. I took the hermetic avocado out
             of the refrigerator and perforated its packaging. I cleaved 
it in three. I mauled its skin open and let its green body loll 
             over torn pieces of rye. It was stiffer than I had hoped, more responsive 
to knife over spoon, but I gnawed on its ungiving body 
             anyway. Five minutes before my grandmother died I ran 
back upstairs; I offered her the final piece. My father tried 
             to stop me, but she smiled and ate it anyway—her teeth softened,
as if dentures. Our avocado browned, as if an afterglow. 

about the author // Raymond Trunk