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1. POISON APPLES
MALACHI
Apples.
I hate apples.
I hate them for no other reason than the symbolism they invoked. Throughout literature, apples have taken on the symbol of sin, the forbidden fruit, the start of chaos, the undoing of man. The most famous stories are that of Adam and Eve, a single apple cost them paradise and peace.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs—an apple laced with poison that caused Snow White to fall into a coma until a random man awakened her with a kiss. A happy ending, unless you knew that Snow White was Margarete von Waldeck, a sixteenth-century German countess who was banished to Brussels by her step-mother. The poison came from the King of Spain, the father of her prince, and yes, with a damn apple. But she didn’t fall sleep, she died.
Then in Greek Mythology, at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, Eris, the Greek goddess of strife and discord, who understandably was not invited to the wedding but lacked the rational capacity to figure out why, decided to throw a golden apple onto the table at the feast to the most fairest one of all. One apple, dozens of vain goddesses, and just like that a wedding was destroyed and a war began.
If I could take every bloody apple and shoot them to the moon, I would. Maybe if I’d thought about it earlier then I wouldn’t have been in my current situation—I wouldn’t have been covered in smoke, sweat, and blood. I wouldn’t have tried to save the old woman from her burning car. Burning because of a chain reaction of events that began with the younger woman who was crossing the crosswalk in front of my car, and the impatient fool who ran out of the store. As he barreled into her and knocked her over, her bag fell and sent a slew of apples rolling into the street. Apples her daughter then broke free of her grasp to chase after which caused the oncoming pick-up truck to swerve left and straight into the old woman’s car as she was pulling out of her parking space at Spencer’s Grocery Store.
The sight and sound of the accident startled the teen driver who was pulling up behind me, causing him to step on the accelerator instead of the brakes. As his car slammed into mine, my head snapped forward and smashed into the steering wheel as my seatbelt dug its way into my shoulder.
“Dude are you okay?!” The teen moron screamed as he rushed from his car to mine.
“Help!”
“Oh my god!”
“It’s on fire!”
Even though my vision was blurred I saw the car—a silver BMW—and the bloodied woman who lay unconscious inside of it, and without thinking I pulled off my seatbelt and ran towards the car. I felt nothing as I yanked on the door repeatedly while the smoke rose into my face. Even when she was in my arms and I was dragging her from the car I felt nothing. Nothing, until I looked around screaming for help, only to see, the now bruised, chipped and deformed but no longer rolling…bunch of fucking apples.
2. RIVER OF VELVET
ESTHER
“And because he loved her…foolishly…selfishly…unreasonably, with no regard for anyone or anything else. He reached out, clenching the hilt of his own sword and drove it through her heart...until the blade pierced through her back and into his own chest, even then it was not enough. He tightened his grip and with the last of his strength, he forced the steel through both of their hearts. And with no final words, not even a final glance, they died. By Diyala River…the end.”
I finished and no one said a word, allowing me to sit down and quietly wipe the tears from my eyes. Inhaling deeply, I stared at the manuscript in my hands.
“Well?” my grandfather asked as he sat up in his chair at the head of the table. He brought his brown, wrinkled hands together and rested his gray-haired chin on them. It was something he always did when he was excited. His brown eyes looked us over as he pushed further. “Any thoughts?”
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, petting the paper as it were a child.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Howard grumbled as he took the red pen from behind his ear and tossed it onto the manuscript. “It’s the same as the last book, hell, all of his books are exactly the same.”
“They are not.” I snapped back.
“They kinda are,” Li-Mei added flipping her bleach-blonde hair over her shoulder. When I glared at her she placed her hand over her heart. “Don’t get me wrong! I love, I mean love his books, but they’re all kind of the same at this point. When I pick up a Malachi Lord novel I’m doing it because I want my feelings to be wretched and to have a good ugly cry. I’m not expecting something else.”
“See—”
“Let me clarify.” My grandfather cut Howard off before he dared to speak another blasphemous word. “Will this new novel outsell his last novel?”
“No,” Howard said confidently. “Because he has devoted readers like you two, he’ll sell the same amount of copies.”
“He picks up new readers each time he publishes a book!” I reminded him.
Howard rolled his hazel eyes at me. “And loses readers with each new book…”
“He—”
“Correction.” He cut me off. “He doesn’t lose readers, it’s more that they’re slow to buy or even read his books now for the same reason Li-Mei said; they need to be in the mood for another heartbreak novel. They know how it will end so they put off reading. If we published…” He glanced down at the title page but there wasn’t one. It just said By Malachi Lord.
“River of Velvet.” I titled it.
“Oooh…nice! I like it,” Li-Mei whispered to herself with a smile.
“River of Velvet. Catchy. Good for next year’s Valentine's Day release.” Grandpa nodded to himself.
“I guess we’re going forward…” Howard said and I could feel him getting ready to piss all over my cheerios. “Valentine's Day, where he’ll sell just about the same amount of copies, give or take a couple thousand, end up on all the usual lists, maybe another B-movie deal, then never read or spoken about again, with the exception of Esther.”
“And the blog which has how many fans?” I questioned him.
“Yes, fine. You and the other 1.5 million fans—”
“Two million fans.” I cut in looking to my grandpa. “Every day I get dozens of messages from fans all over the world. If your question is ‘will he sell?’ The answer is yes because he always sells. Even if he wrote a dinner menu I’d buy it and read. We all know and have met authors and aspiring authors that would kill for his success.”
“Howard.” Li-Mei coughed, unsubtly poking fun at Howard’s novel…the one he’s been writing apparently since the Stone Age. Howard glared and I smiled as she reached for Penohxi Publishing House mug. “Sorry, you were saying?”
I loved her.
“Then it’s settled.” Grandpa nodded as he leaned back and adjusted his ascot. Yes,
his I’m-sophisticated ascot, before giving us our marching orders. “Howard, have sales print two thousand less than normal.”
“Two thousand?” I frowned.
Howard grabbed his pen and nodded to himself. “That way if he doesn’t surpass the normal amount we aren’t stuck giving out less. And if he does for some strange reason we could use that as a marketing ploy…yeah okay. Any luck with getting him to do the signed copies?”
“Keep dreaming.” Grandpa laughed before looking to his left. “Li-Mei, production is key for this. Everything from the front cover to the actual page headers should have that middle-eastern/Arabian nights feel to it. Esther, promotion, promotion, promotion. I want the hype for this book to be like the second coming.”
Nodding, I tried not to cringe at the fact that my grandfather just used the word “hype”.
“How soon should I start marketing? I actually think we should start a week before Valentine's Day.”
