Every slat except for one on the massive bookshelf is empty. Despite having been constructed only the day before, it and the blue ceramic pear atop it are covered in a fine film of dust. The pear’s balance is precarious-looking, seeming ready to topple right over at any moment. Its color, once rather vibrant, has muted and become more gray.
Sun and age will do that to a glaze, he thinks. He also thinks that the fact that the pear was the only knickknack not crushed during the move is a bit of a heavy-handed sign of some sort. As was going grocery shopping last week only to encounter an abandoned basket filled with Wild Cherry Pepsi and chocolate-flavored calcium chews. Seeing it at 5 pm instead of carrying it at midnight felt jarring and invasive.
Still, the pear.
There are no curtains on any of the windows, yet, and the late evening sun slants in at an angle. A bar of the light slices across the carpeted floor, and crawls along the pear’s shelf at an almost imperceptible rate. In a few minutes, it’ll glint off of the dull, misshapen curve of its bottom, highlight the thumbprint still visible right at the base. He knows exactly what the whorl looks like; how a small, smooth line bifurcates the print; that there’s a crescent-shaped nail mark beside the signature on the bottom.
The bar of sunlight rises up the side of the pear, warps its own shape to fit the curves of the lone object. He watches its progression and the dancing dust motes in the air from his vantage point: Sat on the corner of an old ottoman pushed against his worn couch on the far side of the living room. After the harsh heat of working outside in the sun all day, he knows that the pear is probably warm to the touch, now; like he always used to be.
If he closes his eyes, he can almost smell the chlorine pool water, taste the peanut butter milkshakes, feel his warm hand wrapped around his own, and absolutely covered in slip and glaze.
Instead all he sees is the faded blue of this single pear, pulled from a crushed box of broken glass and porcelain. He doesn’t know why he kept it in the first place; god knows he cared about the picture frames and small family of glass ducks far more (at least that’s what he tells himself). And the pear is blue. It’s the unpleasant blue of mistakes and carelessness, made to the soundtrack of baseless hope and optimism.
It had been funny, once. It had represented the absurd quiddity of their relationship, founded on inside jokes about jelly beans on Halloween. It still does, in some ways. Which is why he sits, now, watches as the sunlight overtakes the pear, covers the opposite side and threatens to leave it in night’s shadow all too soon.
He could go back, open up that door like stepping into an empty high school classroom. He imagines the only thing in there besides the desks and sense of saudade would be that single, lopsided, faded blue pear.
So he pulls out his cell phone, swipes his thumb until his contact list comes up, and hovers over the name he still hasn’t deleted. He waits until the sun has completely set: No orange gleam in the room at all, the pear gone cold and pale in the nascent darkness. Then he finally decides.
