The clock did not strike five; instead, it peeled itself like a ripe Clementine, dropping brass gears into a saucer of lukewarm milk. Oriela watched the cogs dissolve into pearly bubbles, then turned her attention back to the centre of the dining table.
There sat a half-eaten crimson sphere.
It had arrived three days prior, delivered by a postman who wore a jacket woven entirely from living grass. The object seemed both fruit and architecture. Its outer rind was a deep, glossy scarlet, but where the skin had been ruptured, it revealed an intricate honeycomb of amber cells. These cells did not contain juice; they contained a faint, rhythmic hum, like a distant cathedral choir rehearsing underground.
Oriela picked up her silver dessert spoon, its engraved handle feeling remarkably warm, almost feverish. She drove the edge of the spoon into the exposed amber flesh of the sphere. A single drop of thick, golden resin welled up, defying gravity by floating three inches into the air before crystallising into a solid bead of topaz.
‘You really shouldn’t entice the geometry,’ a voice murmured from the window.
Oriela did not look up. She knew the curtains had taken to advising her on matters of etiquette lately. ‘The geometry is hungry,’ she replied, her voice flat. ‘Or perhaps I am the one being consumed.’
She swallowed the segment. Instantly, the taste of autumn rain and rusted iron filled her mouth. The walls of the cosy dining room began to soften, their striped wallpaper melting into vertical ribbons of liquid mint. The floor beneath her velvet slippers rippled like a disturbed pond, forcing the heavy mahogany table to drift gently towards the fireplace.
Through the window, the sky had abandoned its usual grey tint. It was now a swirling tapestry of turquoise and ochre, mirroring the chaotic background. The clouds did not float; they grew like moss over the roofs of the neighbouring houses. A flock of bowler hats flew past, migration season having arrived early this year.
Oriela looked down at the half-eaten crimson sphere. Another segment had vanished, though she had only taken one bite. The exposed interior was changing, shifting into the shape of a miniature spiral staircase that wound down into an impossible, shadowed depth within the fruit.
She leaned closer, her breath fogging the scarlet skin. Far down the staircase, she could see a tiny version of herself, sitting at a tiny mahogany table, staring at an even smaller red globule.
A sudden draught swept through the room, smelling of citrus blossom and fresh snow. The grass-coated postman was standing in the corner now, quietly watering his own waistcoat with a small zinc can.
‘Is it to your liking?’ he asked her.
Oriela laid the spoon beside the plate. The silver had turned to salt, scattering across the damp linen. ‘It tastes of elsewhere,’ she said. Then she reached out to touch the sphere one last time, but her fingers simply slipped through the colour, sinking into the crimson as if it were nothing but sultry evening light.
