It's been a full week - seven nights, seven days - and all the people I've seen have been real.

Not that I'm complaining.  Not exactly.  The truth is, Simon could be a real pain in the ass sometimes.  Imagine a person who could just drop in anytime, anywhere, with no warning, no invitation, no reason for being there, except to distract you, or make some inane comment, or ask one of those crazy, circle-jerk questions that only a five-year-old can ask, and not even a zen master can answer.  And the way he would just sit there, existing, or not-existing, and knowing he never had to worry about paying bills or cooking dinner of any of the day-to-day hassles that plague actual, flesh and blood creatures like you and me.  Needless to say, it got old.  Sometimes listening to him prattling on - so blithe, so carefree - you just wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up.  To please, please, go away.

And then, just like that, he does.

Have you ever had that thing happen, when there's a sound way off in the distance, a car alarm or a leaf-blower, a sound that you're not really hearing until the moment it stops, and then you notice it, not because of its presence, but because of its absence.  The breath you skip.  The stair that isn't there.  The thing that you've taken for granted, that's become a part of your day, until suddenly it's not, and every time you take a step, you're stepping over that hole, that void, and telling yourself not to look down.

Or the way after a good friend has visited for a long weekend, you'll be cleaning up, putting things back in order, and you'll find some personal item, some remnant, he or she has left behind.  A pair of socks.  A toothbrush.  And of course it's only an accident, but of course it's something more.  It's your friend, lingering on like a memory.  Appointing some small yet tangible proxy to maintain a presence in your life.

A week gone by - seven nights, seven days - and each one of those days I've stopped, and paused, and taken a good long look at Simon's parting gift.  The small green orb in the off-white bowl.  The apple of his - or is it my - eye.  Apple trees are notoriously promiscuous, they cross-pollinate like mad, and so this apple, like every apple you or I have ever eaten, is the product of a grafted tree.  Which is, perhaps, what Simon and I are, or were.  Me, with my feet on the ground, my roots anchored deep in this place we call the real world.  And Simon, with his head in the clouds, his limbs stretching out to the sun, part of me and yet not part.  If so, then this apple is our offspring.  Our child.  A little bit of both of us, made real.

Or as real as anything gets in this life of mine.

Now if I were to concede that this life isn't real, that it was instead a dream, or a fairy tale, I would immediately know what to do.  Take a bite of the apple.  And in doing so, become somehow transformed.  Perhaps I'd gain knowledge of good and evil, loose what little innocence I have left.  Or fall into a deathly slumber, only to be awakened one day by the kiss of a handsome prince.  Either one sounds bearable, if not exactly desirable.  And if nothing at all happens, then we're back to square one - all this is real, whatever that means, and I can get back to the business of living.

Which is why I am standing here, in my small, cluttered excuse for a kitchen at 4:47 on a Sunday afternoon, staring at that same, and by now quite familiar, Granny Smith.  Or I don't know, maybe it's a Pippin.

Even after seven days, it seems no worse for the wear, and I'm glad that Simon or The Powers That Be decided to settle on an apple, and not some fruit that gets all tetchy and perishable, like a banana.  Still, something's wrong.  Even though it looks fine, and I figure I'm finally ready to do the obvious thing, the only thing, to just go for it and take a big, honking bite, I find myself hesitating instead.  Because suddenly it's not an apple anymore, it's a Hershey bar, and I'm seven or eight years old, and I'm counting each square, and doing the math, and realizing if I only eat one square, instead of the whole thing, it's like I'm getting ten separate little candy bars, ten and not just one.

So now I'm sitting back watching my seven or eight year old self go to the drawer, and open it up, and take out a small paring knife - careful, sharp! - and then reach over and snatch the apple out of the bowl.  And being the clever little lad I am, I know all about fractions, and proportions, and all that grown-up stuff, and so first I cut the apple clean down the middle, that's two, and then cut each of the halves into quarters, that's four, and then, now here's the tricky part, carefully slice each quarter into a perfect little half, which makes for eight, which isn't quite as good as ten, but a whole lot better than one.

And then, just like that, it's me again, a strung-out, middle-aged man, staring at eight slices of apple on a wooden cutting board.

The slices are surprisingly uniform.  Not bad for a wee tyke.  Still, he didn't quite get around to cutting out the core and seeds, so now it's time for one decidedly larger hand to pick up the knife, while another grabs the first slice of apple.  Only somehow, after that, neither hand wants to do much of anything.  Which is strange.  I mean everyone knows you don't eat the seeds.  They're bad.  They've got poison in them, arsenic or something, or maybe it's that they sprout down there, and start to grow, and all of a sudden you've got an apple tree growing out of your stomach.

But in spite of all this, which I've known since before I was seven or eight, since before I could even count that high, I take the slice, stick it in my mouth, and begin to chomp away.

Wow.  It's just the way Simon described it, that incredible mix of tart and sweet, ying and yang, and even the seeds are a revelation, the way they fight back, determined to hold their ground, until the inevitable moment when they are crushed to pieces by the power of all those molars brought to bear.  Wow.  Forget about Hershey bars.  Forget about waigu beef, and shaved truffles, and Doritos Extreme Ranch.  This tiny slice of apple is the most amazing thing I've ever eaten.  And the best part is, I've got seven more just like it, just waiting to devoured whenever, wherever I see fit.

Or at least that's what I thinking at the time.

But I'm wrong.

Because the best - or maybe just the strangest - is what happens next.