Of A Watermelon Called Anna

Once upon a time there was a little watermelon–well actually she wasn’t so little-who’s name was Anna. Anna was one of the many fruit and vegetables that grew in the old gardeners back jard. There were watermelons, melons pumpkins cucumbers, tomatoes and many more. The gardener had died quite a few years ago and no one had claimed his belongings, which had had as a result that the garden had remained unattended for along time. So in it fruit as well as vegetables would grow and roam (if something like that is possible) freely and without the fear being eaten. A kind of fear that their relatives, who lived in the neighbouring, garden, knew just to well. The old gardeners neighbour was one of these people that grow their own food, due to their fear of preservatives and additives one often finds in purchased food and the side effects these can eventually bring about.(more about Anna’s appearance in the sketches)

Now, despite the fact, that Anna and the rest of the fruit that grew in the old man’s back yard didn’t have to follow any one’s directions, or –for any reason- live with the fear of imminent death, they did hold on to a few of their older traditions, one of which was not to relate to any one that wasn’t of the same kind. So you would see watermelons conversing only with watermelons, cucumbers with cucumbers, lemons with lemons and so on. This was also the one rule, Anna had great difficulty abiding by. She was one of the youngest members of the garden community and still had many questions regarding life and it’s pourpose. And she felt the need to pose these questions to every one regardless of their race.

Now the plant growing closest to the watermelon bush was the cucumber plant and because of that Anna had come to the conclusion that cucumbers were simply the thinner relatives of watermelons. Her answer to the question as to why cucumbers and watermelons only scarcely spoke to each other was that these thinner relatives of her didn’t want to have any thing to do with her round and clumsy family since they regarded themselves as distinctively more elegant and intelligent. Anna felt quite displeased about this discrimination and began to ask herself why she couldn’t be one of these lean cucumbers who she would call thinmelons and why she couldn’t be in the position to faze out her fat relatives graceful and elegant as she would be.

In her puberty –which is about the time when a watermelon reaches half the size ,of the size it reaches, when it is fully grown-Anna began to understand that she simply wasn’t allowed to speak to any one but her own kind EXCLUDING cucumbers, thinNNER relatives and THINMELONS !!! Still she didn’t stop trying. And since- as we all know – water melons and cucumbers don’t move a lot –she simply started talking to one of the younger cucumbers, that lay next to her (and couldn’t do any thing else than listen to her).

Now, the fact that fruit and vegetables don’t move around a lot, led to another problem. When ever she tried to talk to Fred (the name she had invented for her “friend”) her parents would try to prevent her from doing so by shouting and repeating over and over again, why she shouldn’t engage into activities such this one.” We still are civilized fruit,” they would state, but Anna – not knowing better than that-simply kept on talking and talking. After all the only thing her parents could do was to keep trying to talk her out of it.

And Fred !? Yes, well, Fred on his behalf was forced to listen to all that noise combined with the voices of his parents telling him not to pay any attention to what Anna had to say. Actually the sounds that finally reached his ears (if cucumbers possess anything resembling an ear – or even a pair of them) sounded a bit like that: WHYDOYOUKWOGRRRRAHHNOTSUPPTALKPAYHEYGARDENIN!!!!!!!

It’s easy for some one to understand that he couldn’t make any sense of that. It should be said though- despite the fact that this story is not about Fred, that he didn’t really care, what was going on around him, since he had very early come to the understanding, that all he would get to do in his life, would be to lie around and wait for himself to rot away. He was the rather depressive kind of cucumber. Basically the only ones that were led to a positive conclusion by this series of incoherent monologues, were the lemons, who realized that– as long as they weren’t ripe enough to fall of their tree, they possessed the privilege of living above other plants: They had a better view and they didn’t have to participate in pointless debates such as the one they were observing. But then again, lemons have always regarded them selves as superior fruit.

Now, Anna, having reached astonishingly new levels of frustration, was on the brink of loosing her mind, realizing that it would be difficult -if not impossible – to move away from her current position, since she didn’t have any limbs that would help her in doing so. By now she had stopped trying to make a difference by speaking to Fred, who obviously didn’t care too much about what she had to say. She knew,she had to move. But how?

It as on a rainy evening. Anna was reflecting on these matters, when she felt the soil beneath her retreating under the weight of her body. Obviously the rain had loosened it. Suddenly it occurred to her! It felt as if she had had the best idea in those few weeks of her life. SHE WOULD ROLL OVER!!! She would wait until the soil was loosened even more and would then –by displacing her weight – ROLL OVER to the direction left of her. That way at least she would be able to escape her parent’s criticism and supervision. She waited and when she felt the time was right, she started trying to roll from her right to her left. Back and forth. Again and again.

Still,before I continue telling the story, I think I should point out a few facts. In reality fruit don’t have a face. Or do they? Maybe they do and we just can’t see it .Then again … No they don’t. At least not any, that I know of. Nor do vegetables of course. In this story though I’m going to have to bend these rules a little in order to continue. Actually it’s quite understandable. After all, did they not have a face, they wouldn’t be able to speak. Would they!?

By now Anna had reached a frequency of rolling back and forth from right to left similar to the one of cradle when some one Is gently rocking it or when a rather strong baby inside it is loosing it’s temper, terrified by the person attempting to rock the cradle. She had almost given up ,due to the immense amount of strength this sort of rolling required, when she finally felt her body turning over. Yes! It was happening! Very slowly- similar to watching something very slow, move in slow motion-she WAS rolling over. YES, yes ..., but no, NO! She had rolled into a mould in the ground to her right and not having acquired the speed necessary to keep rolling, she was now stuck in it. The position she was in now was actually even worse than her previous one, since now she was lying on her face. What a misfortune. WHAT A FUCKING MISFORTUNE!!! Truly, at the time being there weren’t any words tat could describe how angry, how pissed off she felt about her situation. Her nose was stuck in the mud, she couldn’t open her eyes and the only way she could attempt to breathe was through the right side of her mouth.

She lay there for a few minutes. Her mind was empty, she was exhausted by all her efforts to roll over In the first place and she couldn’t think of any way to roll back into her previous position. Asking some one for help was out of the question also, since no one would hear anything aside from a few bubbles coming out of the mud in which her face was stuck. Not the kind of sound that would alarm anybody, especially now when all the fruit and vegetables were sleeping. Even Fred, who was a bit closer now that she had rolled over, didn’t seem to take notice of her panting and her – muted by the mud-cursing. He just lay there like a cucumber in the mud, which is actually exactly what he was.

Anna felt completely overcome by a feeling that would make desperation look the kind of emotion when some one looses his apartment keys for the first time. Or not. Anyway, she was very VERY unhappy with the turn events had taken. After a while –and under the impression, that she had regained her strength – she began making new efforts to roll over, but it simply wouldn’t work. The only achievement she managed to accomplish was to sink her nose deeper into the mud every time she moved. She stopped and tried to think things over again. Obviously the fruit-vegetable community would be rather relieved at the sight of her not being able to annoy them with her aggravating questions any more. Her parents would be able to go about their own business –which was a repeated conversation about the weather conditions, the seasons and how these two affected their aging process-without having to prevent their daughter from talking to Fred, who on his side would be relieved of the constant shouting and debating around him and would finally be free to just keep on lying there until he died. Yes, she was actually trying to come to terms with the fact, that she would spend the rest of her life lying there in the mud, face down.

A few hours had gone by and Anna had started to consider lying in the mud as something, which could turn out to be rather enjoyable. A quiet way of life. A life without all these confusing options. After all the less choices one has, the less dilemmas he is likely to find himself in. Not bad, actually, for a thought coming from a watermelon(So much for the philosophical deductions, a watermelon can achieve).

Now, as it is in most of our puny insignificant lives, coincidence often plays a very important part. The same way it did in Anna’s life.

It just so happens, that in this very night a few of the lemons, that –until then - had peacefully hung from their tree, turned ripe and were scheduled to fall of their branches on the next morning. Now the water from the heavy rain had increased their weight loosening them from their branches to an even greater extent than anticipated.

Anna on the other hand didn’t know anything about that and was sleeping exhausted by her first actual physical activity. So when the first lemon hit her back, she didn’t notice a thing. She was dreaming. She was dreaming that she had won a “roll-over-contest”, that apparently took place annually in the fruit-vegetable community and was organized by the lobby of thin, good looking cucumbers(also known as thinmelons). And since Anna was a so very thin and good looking thinmelon, the jury had selected her as the winner of the first prize(what ever that could be for a thin watermelon).The lemon that had bounced of her back, had felt rather like an awarding pad on her back, given to her by the champion of the last contest. So Anna kept on sleeping and ripe lemons kept on bouncing of her back (many, really many awarding pads) until Anna had finally been rolled over to the spot she had been lying in with her face directed at the sky.

Anna hadn’t noticed a thing. Only after the 20^th pad on her shoulder had she given away a sound similar to the one a baby makes when it’s done burping. And it was at that sound, that Anna had been fully turned over. A big smile was crowning her face. Of course –being asleep- she hadn’t noticed a thing of had happened. She didn’t know that she was about to awake in the same position she had started her journey from, but at the time being that didn’t matter at all, compared to all these pads on her shoulder. She felt completely satisfied-she thought. So that’s that. Or not. There is a question that occurs actually. And that’s it:

What is most important?

And the answer is:

It is most important to be situated as high as possible in order to have a clear view of what is happening below, without taking part in it(at least not deliberately). Just like the lemons. Or any other fruit that hang from trees.