Excerpt from “The Secret” by James Baxter…coming Summer of 2019.
As I bite into the procured fruit I am, for a moment, a boy, again. I wipe the earth from the firm ripe skin and puncture the oily surface with my teeth. The moist fleshy pulp massages my tongue as countless Indian summers pass. Cool winds and warm bright sunlight compete for possession of my cheeks. The juices trickle inside the corners of my lips, and sticky fingers wipe the droplets from their hollow. The slightly salty juice travels the length of inside my throat and lands in the confines of my stomach. Irony…cruel tricks of the mind…how such a serene moment can cause such a flood of sinister memories from a dark time…a time I buried in what I thought were the unreachable depths of my mind. But now, the haunting memories scale the wall of time in my mind and with the memories comes the guilt; I wish I had never seen it happen…I wish even more that I had told someone; fear…no, terror, kept me from telling. So for years the dark and sinister secret lay buried beneath layers of that fear and guilt; until today. Today, it ends…or perhaps it is just the beginning.
James Baxter 