Just a Couple of Days: An Excerpt

Why aren’t apples called reds? What a dumb question, I used to think, before a five-year-old named Dandelion taught me otherwise.

Why aren’t apples called reds? One could just as easily ask why aren’t bananas called yellows, or why are oranges called oranges? These are essentially the same question, no matter the outfit in which we dress her.

Why aren’t apples called reds? One could just as easily ask why aren’t bananas called yellows, or why are oranges called oranges? These are essentially the same question, no matter the outfit in which we dress her.

Why aren’t apples called reds? All questions are female. All answers are male. If you’re wondering why this might be the case, you are thinking with your feminine sensibilities. If you’re considering why this is the case, you are thinking with your masculine senses. Questions are creative, intimidating, and periodically irritating. We may think them docile, we may try to ignore or suppress them, but their destabilizing power persists, pushing us toward our proper destiny. Answers are protective, giving us some ground, however shaky, on which to stand. Answers are cool, logical, but they can also become stubborn know-it-alls, resisting the emergence of new questions and answers and deteriorating into conservative old farts. Truth is a precarious balance between poignancy and peace. Truth lies within the perpetual prance of Yin and Yang.

Why aren’t apples called reds? Look at her. She blushes exactly like an apple in the harvest sunshine every time she’s pronounced. She is an honest question, unassuming and not at all arrogant. She is demure, to be sure, but her diffidence is her only defense to the endless parade of listless shrugs and wise-assed banalities that have been answering her every utterance since shortly after the dawn of time.

Why aren’t apples called reds? She’s an old question, one of the oldest, in fact, and a bachelorette until Dandelion introduced her to her long lost answer. The oldest question, that is to say, the first question borne on the vibrations of a monkey’s larynx, is of course why are we here? After all, if we are to believe those rumors about Adam and Eve, this question surely occurred to them while they were still munching their apples of knowledge. It could not have been very long, perhaps while they were abashedly affixing fig leaf pasties over their genitalia, before one of them wondered why that stupid fruit was called an apple (or a pomegranate or whatever) in the first place.

Why aren’t apples called reds? She does not mind these repetitious pronouncements of her essence. She used to fumble and fret, but now she pays her continued vocalizations only courteous heed. She found her answer, though most of us never received the wedding announcement. It was a wild party, some say the wildest the linguistic universe had ever seen. But the Logos, the realm of all questions and answers and the ultimate source of all knowledge, knows this to be an exaggeration. There is another question, the oldest question, whose impending union promises to be the highest time of all.

Why are we here? Come on people now, let’s introduce them already. We know her answer. We’re just afraid to admit it.

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