Bad apple

green and red apples

I’m attempting to respond to these writing prompt challenges a bit differently this week. Each 100 Word section uses one or both of the prompts. They are stand alone pages, but are also parts of a larger story. Please look for the “Pages” links at the bottom of the post.

This week’s Studio30 Plus prompt is “Infection,” and/or “Red Apple.”
The 100 Word Challenge is to tell a story in only 100 words. This week’s theme is “Bough.”

Sweet temptation, dangling like a luscious red apple on the highest bough of an otherwise barren tree, she stays just out of arms reach. An intoxicating promise of what could be, heady and exhilarating, her charms are inescapable.

Many attempt to pluck her fruit from the limb, only to fall, crashing down in a heap, broken and dispirited, forever damaged.

Pristine and unblemished, her immaculate skin untouched by time, conceals her true inner self. Twisted and corrupt, worm infested, she is pure poison masquerading as manna.

He watches from the fringe, waiting, pity mixed with contempt for her wretched sycophants.

22 thoughts on “Bad apple

  1. Very cool approach, and intriguing. I wonder about that corruption. Is it her perception? Is it his/theirs? Is it real at all? I’m left with questions – good ones.

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  2. every page was a punch, hard-hitting and so well crafted (just like the apple) that it is the perfection that that woman is not.

    I was just talking to my mom last week about the older I get the more sad I am that people just can’t be the people I expect them to be, that in giving so openly of myself and finding out that some people are dark and “brown” underneath, I am slowly closing myself off and it hurts.

    but still we reach, don’t we?

    it was an incredible trilogy my friend.

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    1. Thank you so much Kir. I find that as I get older, I’m becoming much more cynical too, and I don’t like it. I hope for the best in people, but do hold back, perhaps waiting for that darkness to show through.

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      1. I have to agree, I have always been so open, so welcoming, so empathetic..but I have also been hurt and used for those same attributes as if they are a weakness. It’s hard not to be who you are (at least for me) and not want to have some of that “Goodness” reciprocated.

        thank goodness for REAL friends like you.

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  3. I really liked the idea of keeping each entry on separate pages – a nice way to keep each unique, though still part of the whole. A whole mind you, that was delightful to read =)

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    1. Thanks Joanne. You probably would have laughed at me about that. After I cut the apple, I let it sit, hoping it would turn brown quickly. When it didn’t I got my hair dryer and tried to speed up the process. It never got as brown as I wanted.

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  4. Deadly! ‘Pristine and unblemished, her immaculate skin untouched by time, conceals her true inner self.’ I’ve met so many people who fit this description! But you’re talking about an apple, aren’t you?

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    1. Am I? It’s really an analogy of a wicked person. I thought about how brown and ugly an apple can become once you bite into it and it’s exposed to light and air, much like how a person can become once you get a look below the surface of their personalities.

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