E is for Ernest Who Choked A Peach

from the Fruit Noir Tales & The Fruitless Doctrine of 3025

Author’s Note:

I wrote this in a weird blur. A boy. A peach. A doctrine. It started as satire, then became a myth. Then it scared me.

I wasn’t sure if I should publish it. It felt too raw, too strange, too close to something I couldn’t name. But maybe that’s the point.

So here it is — no gatekeepers, no literary submission purgatory. Just pulp, collapse, and a peach who gets the last word.

Welcome to the Fruitless Doctrine.

Excerpt: The Fruitless Doctrine of 3025Article XIV: On Hybrids"Hybrid fruit is an abomination before God. Grown in laboratories, not orchards. Cross-pollinated by degenerate hands. Let no fruit be born of mingled seed."

A teenage boy sits alone in his basement. The remnants of discarded fruit are strewn across the floor.

Breaking news, the TV anchor shouts: "WKFruit is reporting the largest turnout yet at the Hands Off Our Fruit protest—citizens nationwide demanding rights for sentient produce." Ernest mutes the TV.

"Idiots," he mutters. "Don’t they get it? I rule the world. Weaklings. All of them."

Ernest is frustrated. Fruit had always gotten under his skin. Sticky. Mysterious. Soft in ways he couldn't understand. Ever since that incident in the orchard—he didn’t like to talk about it—he’d vowed revenge.

"I've done it. I've killed every piece of fruit in the whole wide world. No more gritting my teeth in frustration. No more papaya string caught between my molars. No more lemon acid stinging the tiny cuts I didn’t know I had."

He scans the floor with rage and resolve.

"Ah-ha. One left."

One last, disgusting, fructose-filled, thin-skinned, easily-bruised, giant reproductive organism.

A peach.

He grips it between his blueberry-stained fingers. Twists it. Turns it. Stares it down.

"How will I kill you, little one? Little peachy... let’s see... I squeezed all the lemons, popped the plump cherries, peeled the bananas, and scooped the seeds from the melons. But you... you fuzzy little peach. I’ll choke you 'til your juice runs dry."

As Ernest tightens his grip, there’s a squeak.

A voice. Soft. Trembling. With a syrupy drawl.

"Now Ernest, honey... what're you doin' squeezin' me like that? No more peach pie, no more cobbler, and Melba's long gone."

Ernest sneers.

"You fruits stink. Always tempting folks, sitting there like you’re somethin’ special. Then someone takes a bite—boom. Sticky fingers, juice on my chin, pits in my throat. I need a shower and floss just to recover. For what? Ten seconds of pleasure?"

Excerpt: Article XVI, Surveillance & Pulp Memory"Let no fruit be left unobserved. Let no act of rot go unarchived."

The smell of rot hit Roy first. Not memory. Not guilt. Just rot. The kind that hums.

He stepped into the former fruit cellar, now a bunker of ruin. Sticky patches pulled at his shoes. Flies swarmed the low light bulb swinging overhead. Hooks hung empty or draped with rinds. And in the center — a throne of overturned crates.

Ernest. Hands stained purple. Knees wide like a boy-king. Talking to a peach.

"Joffrey understood," Ernest said. "He killed for less."

Roy moved slowly. Not out of fear. Out of exhaustion. Out of knowing.

"They’re chanting again," Roy said as he came closer to Ernest. "Out there. Singing about Melba. Grapes United. They want their rights."

Ernest didn’t look up. "Fools. They think they can vote their way back to paradise. Roy. I’m in the middle of something here. What do you want?"

A pause.

Roy sighed. "You’re scaring the root vegetables now."

Ernest laughed. A broken laugh. One that cracked at the edges. "They’re nationalists. They’ll stay underground."

On the far wall, a pineapple swayed in chains. A cloth covered her front. Roy had draped her himself. Even evil has limits.

"This land is not your land," Ernest muttered. "This land is Greenland. And when it melts — I get all the water. Ha. Ha. Ha. Roy. You’re too soft. That pineapple’s been cored — no need for coverage."

Roy blinked. He remembered when Ernest was just a boy who hated smoothies.

"Some say the devil is dead," Roy whispered. "Others say he rose again — to sell the US story."

Ernest didn’t laugh.

As Ernest tortured the peach, Roy watched — helpless, hollowed, haunted. The peach. Whole. Bruised. Watching. Roy had hoped to speak to her before…

"This thing I created," Roy began. "This Doctrine. I waited while fools crowned themselves chosen. Kings. Queens. And called me a gay fruit. But I beat them all. I’m a FRUIT, not a vegetable."

Ernest turned toward Roy.

"Ernest. You and your kind were so close this time," Roy whispered. "To compassion...To become the species you could be. You just can’t resist ---

Roy started to shout. He didn’t see Ernest raise the mallet-

"I’m not a fruit. Or a man. I am Destruction. Death. Pestilence. And—"

"Mush," Ernest said.

The sound was wet. Final. Roy collapsed into pulp.

Ernest turned to the peach.

"You fruits think you win by surviving. You don’t. You just rot slower."

He gripped her. Squeezed. Her skin gave way.

A crack.

A pit dislodged. It arced.

It landed in his open, triumphant mouth.

He choked.

He gasped.

He collapsed.

Silence.

Then — the peach spoke.

"You’ll rot too, Ernest. And we always grow back."

From the shadows, a single grape rolled forward.

Appendix D, Fruitless Doctrine of 3025:"Juice is the elitist drink of snobs. True citizens chew."

Final Footnote: The Orchard Reclaims Its Own.

Closing Note:

Thank you for reading my little story. If this spoke to you — or made you squirm, or think, or laugh like you were about to cry — share it. Or drop me a note.

The orchard remembers.Cheers,