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The air smells like oranges.
It’s early, but there is not a lot of sleeping left for them, and in the morning hours they found themselves here. He does not know where the orange came from, only that it was there, and that his hands reached for it. Sometimes he thinks they are greedy, his fingers, always reaching and reaching, grasping the air for something that is not here anymore, something that maybe was never there in the first place. It was always this, he never could learn to not want, and this terrible feeling ate him away until there was nothing to want anymore, nothing to have at all.
The air smells like oranges.
It’s almost tangible in the small space. The smell and the gap between them, feeling like lightning years, everything unreachable and far away. And he can taste memories, bitter on his tongue, in every look he takes. The man besides him is silent, and he wonders if there is really something waiting for them, anything beyond the twilight. Is there nothing left but this, he wants to scream, to beg. He doesn’t know if what is left to give, doesn’t know if he will ever see a sunrise again.
The air smells like oranges.
There is grey in his hair, it was orange the last time he saw it. But just like his armor, it was washed out. Did he too, he wonders, watch every strand of color disappear like it was his penance, his salvation. At his side his fingers itch to grasp, to understand, as if a touch could not break everything.
The only orange left is a small fruit, round and red like a faraway planet, drowning in blood. And his fingers are peeling it, peeling it, tearing apart its skin, digging to find the hidden secrets. And he is hoping he will not break it. They will share it, that he knows, grazing fingers and tentative smiles, that he hopes. And maybe they can carve a space with their hands, maybe it can be theirs, maybe they can fill it with all the orange they can’t bear to carry anymore.
So he peels it, and prays his fingers will be more than what they were made for.
Here, it says, is all, take it.
He watches the skin opening and prays it will be enough.
The air smells like orange.