where there's smoke, there's clementine

I tossed the peelings into the sink and turned the disposal on. I am not enamored of such devices. Is it because the one we had in The Projects broke? Didn't it break so often we gave up on having them repair it? Did its guttural grind scare me? As the disposal was gargling the skin of the clementine, I thought I saw a cloud of smoke puff up from the bottom of the sink hole to the right of the disposal. Smoke? Uh-oh. The next day, I kept an eye out for smoke. As I was uncurling my clementine at breakfast, I spotted -- and smelled -- a sudden burst of citrus spray escaping from the tender fruit.

Mystery solved. Mystery epiphanied.

Where there's smoke, there's not fire. Not necessarily.

And the day after that, steam uncurling heavenward from my hot tea with half and half no sugar. Swirling skyward. As if a genie were about to appear and offer to grant me wishes.

Wishes already granted.

Because in seventy years I had never seen my breakfast tea in quite that light.

The Clementine Chronicles, continued

Murder on the Disorient Express

Dramatis Personae:

OldWhiteGuy stereotypical converted-loft dweller, goatee-adorned; spectacles-wearer; enough head hair to comb except on the sides owing to stylist's shorning the week preceding; 5'10"; 169 pounds; blue jeans; blue T-shirt; blue-green-purple flannel shirt not tucked in; fragrance: Luna Rossa by Prada; Euphoria by Calvin Klein deodorant; unshaven for several days

Three Ravens pecking at unseen morsels on the roadway or bickering on the chain-link fence or telephone wires

DismemberedClementine* Jackson Pollocked (except for color; goldenrod-clementine-flesh yellow-orange backgrounded by burnt umber wetted, ergo Mark Rothko'ed except for the scatteredness; picture a spherical descent bursting onto the concrete, tossed from an upper-story window; motive and perp, unknown) into 22 segments and/or fragments of said segments, on the sidewalk [see below] by the side exit of the brick former knitting mill; a splayed and still glistening ink-blottish stain artistically placed on the snow-bereft sidewalk as a place setting or as a result of the Capital Citrus Murder (CCM)
*cf. The Laughorist blog post of 2 December 2018

DismemberedClementine Peeled Skin (absent, nowhere to be seen; unknown if peeled in one fell swoop or not)

DeadFish (scales on; head attached; accusatory cyclops-ish eye; absent corpse, nowhere to be seen; cf. The Laughorist blog post of 2 February 2019)

62.8 CCM Suspects (40 apartments, average of 1.5 residents in each minus 1.0 LaughoristDweller [a.k.a. OldWhiteGuy], plus 3.8 happenstance, random street-cred pedestrians) 

Ghosts of Bob Marley & The Wailers

Scene 1: 

Enter OldWhiteGuy, exits building, turns right, spots DismemberedClementine (rest in pieces, R.I.P.), halts, retreats, pivots left, inspects crime scene, counts segments, makes mental notes, turns right again, walks on ice- and snow-ridden sidewalk to car

OldWhiteGuy (posing as Hamlet Lear) (sotto voce): "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the skin!"

Enter Ghosts of Bob Marley & The Wailers singing: "One love, one heart... Let's get together and feel all right... Hear the children cryin'; give thanks and praise to the Lord ... Is there a place for the hopeless sinner who has hurt all mankind just to save his soul? One love, one heart ... Let's get together and feel all right!"

Exeunt Omnes

The Clementine Chronicles

The morning rite: one seedless succulent clementine on the tabletop, on the wood portion, near the slate. Sit in high-backed chair. Steaming black tea, half and half, no sugar. Heidelberg Cracked Wheat, toasted, three slices. All three with butter. One with Bonne Maman Red Raspberry Preserves, French. Clementine, Algerian. The Clementine Challenge: peel it uninterrupted, unimpeded in one fell swoop, one unbroken peel. Has yet to happen. Its taste less acidic than the typical, larger orange; its size, small; its nine morsels edible. (Nine edible portions? Sometimes, for example, ten. And if nine, here's a mathematical conundrum: when I break the sphere in half, 50 percent, how do I get two equal halves [4.5?] without splitting one morsel in half, squirtiness and all?  The peeling: paper towel underneath in case of juice release. Aren't polishes for wood citrus-y? The first challenge is the start. To puncture, to break through its skin without squirt or puddle. Skinny dipping. Take a fingernail to break the barrier. Pierce it. Then curl, roll, peel, delicately. Okay, so the disrobing is interrupted. Breakage. It won't be one exciting unpeeling with a presto! ending. Nevertheless, when all is said and done, what, six segments of peeled skin which, if fitted together, comprise a fruitful Rorschach gestalt structure. Four or five on an exceptionally good skin-spin cycle. Is one perfect Pauline peel possible? Who can say? Then, a reversal: the inability to puncture, to get things started. Is it because of closely clipped fingernails? A difference in the batch of clementines? Temperature or humidity? Try a small cut with a knife. Bleeding of clementine juice (not blood orange's). Droplets on the tabletop's wood, the paper towel yellowed, urine-colored yet still brightly and refreshingly citric. The worse wound: the whole peeling venture has run amok! Portions cleaved with skin intact. Take the fruitflesh to mouth and peel that way. So unaesthetic. So sloppy, drippy, and skill-less. Such anarchy. What happened? Who knows. But the next morning, after the words up to this point, a refreshed peeling venture. Softly, with pressure, pick at the outer layer of the outer layer. As if performing a patient surficial scraping. Indentation. Breach. And then, ah, the most exquisite peel-curl yet: inches long, liberated from the sphere, fragrancing the morning air. Five peeled-skin segments but really four if the crumb-sized bit is not counted; three if the large-crumb-sized bit is discounted. Mostly one, an elongated scroll, a clementined unfurling in all its clement mercy. Maybe it was the switch to Smuckers. Most likely the recast attention afforded from the previous draft, the one that had ended with "What happened?" And did anyone perchance mention the pruriently pleasing uncleaving of the crescent sections of edible fruit, a secret, quiet, and delicate undertaking requiring the dexterity of a surgeon, a lover's tender patience?