A Peach In the Cage
We find the room, the one that Seth talked about. It smells like old gun parts, gin, and chlorine. Therein, on the top floor, as he said it would be, is the cage. In it, a peach.
It’s seen better days. So have I.
If you have telepathy at this point, you can read my mind as I inspect it. You have my permission to do so. If not, skip the next paragraph. All you see is my beautiful mug, looking kind of serious and male-ish cos my jaw is set and my brow is furrowed. Incidentally, I’m told I look almost exactly like Dad when I make this face.
Here’s what I’m thinking. Oh, and as I rule, I tend to write telepathic thoughts in italics—as opposed to internal narration. But don’t hold me to that. You know how I get about shit like that. Anyway, here’s what I’m thinking: It’s a tough thing to be a peach. You grow to be ripe and beautiful. That’s when you are most delicious, too, and so likely to be eaten. Eaten, then discarded. Thrown away. I’m a peach. No, I’m not. You’re not, T. I don’t know why you get like this. You don’t? Maybe because my dad is dying, asshole. No, bitch. You’re a bitch. I hate that word. I know you do, that’s why I switched it. Maybe Seth is trying to throw us off the scent? But Seth isn’t the one who tipped us to the tapes. And we didn’t ask Seth about it, not in this time, anyway. Jesus fuck, T, this is so confusing. Why do you have to make everything so confusing?!?! Can’t you just tell a straight fucking story and live a simple life? Why’s everything got to be some fucking labyrinthine tragedy with you? I don’t know. If I knew, do you think I’d keep doing this? Probably. You get obsessed with things. I used to. Still do. Do not. Yes, you do. Okay, fine, whatever. I’m not going to argue with you about it.
I sigh, open the cage and take out the peach corpse. I’m wearing gloves, just to be clear. I turn it over in my hand, then sniff it.
It doesn’t smell bad, I say. And it’s softer than I would have expected.
If you have a knife on you, we can do the dissection right here. [Ed. v.i., play procedures.]
If not, then I raise my other hand, as though expecting something to happen, then go, Oh. Right. Nonviolence and all that.
And then I pocket the peach, and say, C’mon. Let’s get the fuck outta here.
Play procedures
- If you know what I was expecting to happen when I raised my hand, you can count this scene toward learning that secret.
- Should you have a knife or similar edged item on you that we can use to open the peach, and you are willing to cut it or let me slice it open, then we do so. Inside the peach pit, where the seed would be, is the ROM cartridge Seth told us about on the tape.
- If this isn’t the first time you’ve encountered a telepathy chapter, and you’re getting fussy about not having that secret, you can jump over to The Grand Story of Not … or maybe it’s We Can Never Go Back? Fuck, it could be Love Is What You Have or even The Black Book of Fear. I can’t remember when I learned it. Sorry. Never mind.
