Can't Lose What Ya Never Had

The trouble had started a few days ago with an offhanded comment made by his father; the boy, barely a year old and almost as tall as his sire had been complaining about the stink of rotting fruit that now filled the orchard, to which his father had commented “Aye, that’s when froots at eets best.” His father had said and when he asked what he meant the shaggy male had cleared his throat and told him “Nevar ye mind. Go ‘n git,” and so he had gone ‘n git straight to the trees to find a pile of stinking fruit in an attempt to find out just what he’d meant.

He had wrinkled his nose and grimaced horribly as he bit into a sickeningly sweet apple and the stagnant muddy taste of the brown wrinkled fruit seeped into his tongue causing him to upchuck the piece of fruit and everything else he had eaten for the past three days. His first thought was that his father had played a horribly, nasty, trick on him, and then slowly began to realize that it hadn’t all been quite as bad as he thought. There was an aftertaste, one that made the pit of his stomach feel bubbly. Had anything he had ever eaten made him feel bubbly? He looked at the fruit again and narrowed his eyes with determination. Maybe if he held his nose…

Holding his nose hadn’t helped the mushy texture but he had managed to power his way through the whole apple without losing anything else in his stomach and by the end of it he felt more than bubbly he felt absolutely giddy and suddenly it became important for him to tell Amos about his discovery. He had tried to walk between the trees back to their den but couldn’t seem to manage it, either because he kept pulling to the left or because he couldn’t seem to remember the pattern needed to walk; front right, back left, back right, front left, back left, front right, back right, back right again- and would end up tumbling over until ultimately he fell asleep where he landed and woke in a thirsty haze the next morning, still too young to know the downside of consuming alcohol in excess.

Which brought him to now. He had gone through most of the fruit in the orchard and he had found himself wondering if all fruits had the effect or if it was only apples and pears. He had traveled south looking for more groves, then more south, then more south until before he knew it he had crossed the Bifrost and entered the other continent and found himself sniffing the floors of the grove for the stench of rot.

Speaking Thinking You