Your choice changes what happens next
A pear at the window
The pear arrived on Nila Vey's windowsill wearing a paper collar. AN EXCELLENT SPECIMEN, it said. UNLIKE ITS OWNER, EASILY BRUISED. Across the garden, the new neighbor was pretending to examine a terracotta pot. Nila turned the fruit around. On the back he had written a smaller sentence: The owner is also easily bruised, but puts up a better performance. She took a bite where he could see her. He abandoned the pot.
Nila was sixty-eight, brown-skinned, with a silver chin-length bob and round dark-red spectacles that made even her shopping lists look accusatory. She wore a raspberry linen shirt with the sleeves rolled above her elbows, and loose indigo trousers. Rafi Orrel, seventy-two, had medium-brown skin, curly white hair and a short white beard. His teal cardigan hung open over an ivory shirt. He had moved into the marigold-windowed flat six weeks ago. Nila's window was cobalt blue. Between them, the brick garden belonged to both flats.
September sun caught the purple asters and the green metal table. Two mismatched chairs stood beneath a pear tree which had never respected anyone's half of anything. Bellweather was full of gardens like this, though Nila considered theirs more interesting because she lived beside it. Rafi lifted a bowl of fruit. "I require an opinion." "You have chosen the correct window." She had been a cinema projectionist, he a food photographer. Both knew how much arrangement went into making pleasure look accidental.