I Am Kurious Oranj Rar (Edge)

I am not an orange anymore. I am a map. I am a history. I am the smell of autumn in a forgotten coat pocket. And as I liquefy into the soil, feeding a single, stubborn dandelion that will push its yellow head through the concrete next spring, I realize the final, hilarious truth.

“Why is the color of joy the same as the color of prison jumpsuits?” I asked the grapefruit to my right. It said I had a complex. I Am Kurious Oranj Rar

This is the story you wanted, isn’t it? The deep one. The one about the fruit that achieved enlightenment through entropy. I am not an orange anymore

They called me Kurious because I asked questions. “Why must the peel be our tomb?” I asked the tangerine to my left. It told me to shut up and photosynthesize. I am the smell of autumn in a forgotten coat pocket

It begins not with a seed, but with a rind. A tough, bitter, solar-orange rind that has been peeled back by a thumbnail caked with soil. Beneath it, the pith is a wound of white, and beneath that, the flesh is a universe of wet, segmented stars.

The fall came. Not a dramatic plummet, but a tired loosening. I landed in a crack in the concrete, a hairline fracture filled with moss and the ghost of a cigarette. This was my stage.