36-year-old Vance thinking about fruit
In the summer of 2003, a man frequently visited the fruit stall I worked in within the fresh market hall. Every time he would visit he’d pick a fruit from the pile, climbing his hands around the form of it. Then he would murmur to himself softly about the last time he had eaten a fruit of this kind. For example, he would pick a mandarin, consider it and then say to himself in an accent — which I don’t remember very clearly — ‘Tangerine, 1996 Hana’s backyard.’ Once he had repeated this for a few of the fruits, usually three or four, he would leave without buying anything. I mimicked this habit for a while, curious whether it would do anything for me. After a few months of trying this habit on, the boredom set in with how often I was able to eat fruit, how indelicately I seemed to do so. And suck on the insides. Often very callously. The fruits of many nations, imported. Peeling skin back, chewing. The muscle of a tangerine if not the perfect time of season is often too sour, its skin is hardened. For the most part, in my humble opinion, eating fruit is rather uneventful. Well, I wonder, aren’t they always growing on trees.
Jamie Marina Lau is a writer, multidisciplinary artist and the author of Pink Mountain on Locust Island and Gunk Baby. On creating this sound piece, Jamie said:
I decided to create a micro-fiction piece/prose poem paired with sound to listen to alongside it. It was a really interesting exercise for me and I felt really inspired thinking about different forms of freedoms and miscommunications around it.