Pomegranate
by Leora S. — A tale of winter neuroticism.
by Leora S., guest contributor
Step one: roll the pomegranate with a firm hand over the countertop to loosen the seeds. Easy enough. T-minus twenty minutes until the brunch guests arrive. Barely enough time to garnish the baked French toast—for fuck’s sake, how long does it take to seed a pomegranate?
Surely her worrying is pointless, Sheila consoles herself. If she’d done this the night before like she’d planned, rather than sitting on the couch picking a third of her left eyebrow clean off for forty-five minutes, she could have avoided the pit of dread she currently finds herself in.
But oh man, on that couch with her former eyebrow in her fingers, she felt more invigorated and focused than she had in weeks: the sensation of the thick roots ripping from her face, leaving behind a raw, smooth surface that she could never previously access when it was covered in a bed of coarse hair. The skin of the pomegranate feels waxy against Sheila’s flakey eczema-laden fingers.
Step two: cut off the flower of the pomegranate and slice it along its white ridges. As Sheila pulls the head off the decapitated fruit, she wonders what dark corner of her mind the idea to invite Bruce came from. He’ll probably be too hungover to even show up anyway. Or, more likely, he will show up an hour late in a shit mood, with a bag of four-and-a-half frozen bagels he just happened to have in his freezer. Sheila has very little sympathy for alcoholics. The cutting process leaves trails of thick red juice along Sheila’s best handmade maple wood cutting board. Bruce had given her that cutting board for her thirtieth birthday.
Step three: gently rip the pomegranate apart to remove the seeds. The pith of the fruit collects under her nails like dead skin and the juice steeps into her hands like a port wine stain. She is often asked what is wrong with her hands: the elongated bony fingers and deep palm lines resemble those of a middle-aged woman, but have looked that way since her adolescence. She often picks off the scales of her eczema in the web of her palms, the movement of which draws attention to her hands from uninvited curious onlookers. At least with the stain now, Sheila thinks, she will have a response to this unwelcome interrogation. Pulling the seeds into her glass bowl, precariously perched on top of her compost bin, she thinks that it would have made more sense to get a box of raspberries. Why bother with such a labour-intensive garnish?
The doorbell rings five minutes too early. “Be right there!” Sheila calls out. Attempting to create an illusion of put-togetherness, she brings her cutting board to the sink. This subtle movement on the wobbly kitchen cart sends her bowl of seeds toppling onto the ground. She doesn’t notice what is happening until she hears the heart-piercing shatter of breaking glass. Sheila stands frozen among the mosaic of glass shards and wet seeds on her stone-gray tiled floor, breathing slowly. The front door opens. Bruce sheepishly waits at the entrance.
“Everything okay?” he asks, innocently.
“Oh, Bruce, I told you to come for eleven-thirty. I’m not ready yet,” Sheila whispers hoarsely, a tear streaming down her face.
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