I’d woken up to something unusual, a sweet scent I could almost taste, lingering in the air. All else played out as would an ordinary morning, birds pitched chirps echoing through the town, their songs carried by an early breeze, it’s cold I inevitably felt drifting through the crack in my window. It was discomforting, the smell not having been something I expected.

I often tense at the thought of not knowing what’s happening within ten feet of me, which is not a trait to be taken lightly. This specific quality I do not take much pride in, I admit.

This simple sweet scented fragrance hardens the tension in my bones, covers the surface of my skin with goosebumps and affects my being more than it’s welcomed. Deep breaths have almost no success in stabling my quivering hands and I lose a little more control by the second. I pay no mind to the ongoing alarm and rush my feet past the door, down the stairs and into the kitchen, where the smell has lead me.

I look around, agitation arousing like a fuelled fire before I catch a mountain load of pomegranates stacked to the roof. The hair on my arms stand up in all my vexation, an itch I’d never be able to satisfy crawls under every inch of my skin, the space between my brows inches closer and closer, my head suddenly hit with an amount of pressure that could plummet me down to earth’s core, the blood in my veins races to the pace of my every thought in a mind ever so vigorous, and with my fingers clutched as hard as I’m able, at a speed I’d never think to be capable of reaching, I run with the pile of pink fruits as my target.

I grab them, as much as I can at a time, tearing at the layers, throwing them aimlessly at abnormal strengths, questions upon questions I have only adding to the perturbation. ‘How had they gotten there beyond my knowing?’ Being the most prominent of thoughts.

Among the many voices, pleading for answers and demanding back power, one divergent question sets this voice apart from the rest, but I don’t care to know if it’s real, the frenzied encounter with the mystery pomegranates holds all of my attention at the neck. I will not cease to end this source of my disarrayed state, not until I’ve emptied myself of every drop of exasperation and uncertainty into this sea of bleeding pomegranates.

“What are you doing?” Is the question, I hear for a second time, the one that finally stops my rioting hands. I turn to the direction from where it came, only to find myself face to face with my husband.

I’m left inaudible, stained by the remnants of my dismantled enemies. He steps forward, careful not to land in any debris, but failing, and observes in utter incredulity. I can do, or say nothing more than to look at him.

“I’d bought the pomegranates you said you needed for an upcoming event. What is this?”

“You bought them?”

“Yes?!”

“Oh.”