The Story of Her Holding an Orange

by Milos Bogetic

  “Leave, or I’ll scream, I swear,” she said, shaking from adrenalin and fear.

  Apparently, that answer wasn’t what the man wanted to hear. He tilted his head to the left while his smile widened. Taking another step towards her, he stopped barely a foot away and spoke in a child-like voice, as if he were a young boy instead of a man in his forties.

  “It would be better for all of you if you took it, Dana, it really would.” The childish voice made him seem even more terrifying, though she hadn’t thought that was possible a moment ago.

  “Get out!” she screamed at him, causing him to lose the smile and step back.

  “Fine. He’ll take it then. He’ll serve the transfer.”

  The man cocked his head back, adjusted his top hat, and walked to the door. Before he exited, he turned the light off in the room. My grandma was left alone in her bed, shaking, surrounded by nothing but darkness and fear.

  She never told anyone about this incident, until that day when I begged her for help. My grandmother said that, at the time, she had no idea who the “he” was that the man was referring to.

  After a few years of always looking over her shoulder, my grandmother let her guard down, although time seemed irrelevant to the man. More than twenty years had passed in between the first two incidents, but Grandma was only a human who wanted to forget, so she moved on.

  In 1992, the man in black from forty years ago was the last thing on my grandmother’s mind. The war in Bosnia had started and my grandfather and she were stuck in a city that was being demolished by military pawns led by greedy politicians. We were absolutely helpless; no supplies were allowed through the borders of Bosnia, and the only thing we could do was talk to them on the phone. It was rough, trying to carry on a conversation while the sounds of shots being fired and exploding bombs could be heard in the background. The food supply was limited (and that’s a generous description), so people had to resort to different methods of survival.

  I remember the story of my cat, Pipi. Pipi was only a kitten when we left Bosnia. We had my grandparents watch her. When the war started, Pipi’s food portions went down to barely anything, which was exactly what my grandparents were living on as well. My kitty then took it upon herself to save the family. Every day, every single fucking day, Pipi would go out and hunt pigeons. She’d bring the dead birds back to my grandparents’ apartment, proud of her contribution. And let me tell you, that little bit of meat is what kept them going through the roughest of times. All three of them. Going out was no option since snipers were shooting every person in the street, so Pipi remained their lifeline for quite some time. Funny how animals can feel shit like that.

  I digress, but that’s how bad it was in Bosnia; my grandparents relied on a kitten for food.

  In 1993, oranges started appearing at my grandparents’ front door rug. First, it was only one a month, then they started finding them more often, maybe once a week. And every time my grandma would find them, she’d throw them out. My grandfather was shocked at her behavior in times of extreme food shortage, and kept asking for a reason why she thought trashing perfectly fine fruit was justifiable. She refused to answer, and after a while, my grandpa gave up and got on board with throwing the oranges out, especially when they started showing up every single day. Then, one evening, they heard a knock on the door.

  Knocking wasn’t normally a bad sign. If military wanted to get in the apartment and murder the two of them, they’d do so by breaking in, not polite knocking. However, there had been an incident a few days before that started with a similar knock on their door. When they opened it, they saw four young soldiers with Muslim emblems on their uniforms. My grandparents were Serbian, which meant that, in that war, they were the enemy of Muslims. They were dragged out in front of their building and put up against the wall, ready for execution. Just as the soldiers were about to fire, Grandpa’s old friend and neighbor, who was a Muslim army commander at the time, showed up, probably coming back from combat. In short, he told the guys to get the fuck out before he executed them instead of my grandparents. They got the message, apologized, and left. I suppose you could say that my grandpa and grandma were lucky on more than one occasion.

  Anyway, when they heard the knock again, my grandparents just assumed that the soldiers had come back. Two years of being in the heart of a war used up all of their fear, so they calmly walked over to the door and opened it. It wasn’t the Muslim military. It was the man. Only this time, a woman was next to him.

  My grandma wasn’t able to state with certainty if the man actually didn’t age the last time she saw him. However, when he stood in front of her that night in ’93, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind - the man looked exactly the same as the first time she encountered him, more than fifty years ago. He wore the same damn suit paired with a top hat and a wooden cane. Next to him was an unusually pale woman with cherry-red lips and eyes that would pierce through your soul.

  “Hello, Dana,” said the woman, smiling, paying no attention to my grandfather standing next to her.

  “What the fuck is this?” demanded my grandfather.

  Immediately, both the man and woman’s smiles faded away, and their heads turned towards my grandpa.

  “You may want to remain silent for this,” the man said, his voice cold and threatening.

  My grandfather has been tortured, starved, and shot at, but he claims that he never felt such fear as when the man addressed him. The man and the woman turned their heads back to my grandmother, the woman tilting her head slightly and smiling again.

  “Where is he?” she asked in a childish voice that didn’t belong to a woman of her age.

  “Who? What do you want? Can’t you see we have nothing?” responded my grandma in desperation. She was so drained of emotion from the years of shit she’d been through that the man and woman, at least for the moment, didn’t scare her like they should have.

  “Don’t argue, tell us where he is,” said Rose. She sounded like a child being denied a toy at the store.

  “Where who is?” jumped in my grandpa, genuinely puzzled by the strange situation.

  “Your grandson,” answered the man. His voice was boyish but cold; my grandfather could feel the blood freeze in his veins.

  “He’s in Montenegro,” Grandpa answered, too confused to think of lying. “Why?”

  The strangers’ grins widened to inhuman proportions. They looked at each other, then turned around, almost mechanically, and walked down the stairs in perfect synchronization.

  “And don’t ever come back!” screamed my grandma after them.

  My grandparents quickly went to the balcony and watched the strange couple leave. The man and the woman walked down the street with bullets flying everywhere, appearing not to give a damn about the danger surrounding them. My grandma couldn’t see that well, but she swears their heads were still tilted to the side, and they both still wore Cheshire Cat grins.

  EIGHT

  The Bike Trail

  After this story, seemingly worthy of a low-budget Hollywood horror movie, I was even more lost. My grandmother didn’t help much; all her memories did was increase the mystery and multiply the questions. I assumed that the woman who visited my grandmother was Rose. In a strange way, I was relieved that Trish and I weren’t the only ones harassed, as crazy as it sounds. Being emotionally exhausted from overanalyzing the situation, I reached the point of not giving a fuck anymore. I could feel the stress build up in my body. How could I not? What human can go through something like this and stay perfectly sane?

  With Trish out of town, I took a day off work to get myself together the best way I knew how. I got my bike and decided to go on a long trip that would hopefully clear my mind and sweat out some stress. I decided to do a long 50-mile route from Provincetown to a city called Hyannis. The weather forecast announced possible showers, so I left all of my electronics at home and took only my helmet and some money. Ten miles into cycling, I was feeling good, and I swear, even if it was j
ust for one damn second, I forgot about oranges.

  After 30 miles or so, I hit a bike trail that led directly to Hyannis. This was the homestretch, in my mind, because the bike trail was fairly flat and easy, so the last 20 miles wouldn’t take long. That was a good thing because the weather was getting progressively worse; heavy fog had set in and I could smell the rain coming. Visibility on the trail was only about 5 feet at best, but that didn’t matter because I was literally the only biker out there. I suppose that normal people don’t do long ass trips on rainy days.

  Halfway through the bike trail, I started noticing benches on the side. I’d been on this road several times before, but I had never noticed the benches. Either way, they were a good idea. The trail was long, and I guess everyone needs a break sometimes. About 7 miles into the trail, I thought I heard laughing. I squeezed my brakes and slid for a few feet on the slick trail before stopping and dismounting. I listened. Nothing. At that time, the fog was so thick, I couldn’t see more than few feet ahead of me, and rain had started coming down. I listened some more. Still nothing.

  At this point, you probably think I’m a fucking moron. Hey, I agree with you. Instead of staying at home, locked up and with a baseball bat in my hands, I decided to embark on this journey alone and with nothing but a couple of bucks in my pocket. I was simply calling for trouble. You have to try and understand my state of mind at the time, though. I was completely emotionally and mentally drained and reached the point of simply not giving a fuck. Or, at least, I thought so.

  I got back on my bike and started pedaling. A few minutes later, I heard the laughter again. I immediately assumed the worst. Since I didn’t know whether the noise was coming from ahead or behind me, I decided to keep going. Luckily, the fog cleared out a bit and visibility went up. A mile or so later, I saw a figure on a bench some hundred feet ahead. At that moment, a much louder, sinister laughter broke out, echoing through the area. I tried telling myself that it was just a biker who sat down to rest, but both you and I know that I wouldn’t be writing this if that were the case.

  As I approached the laughing man, I could see more clearly that he was no biker. He wore something black. A few pedal strokes later it became obvious that the man was wearing a suit. A black suit, in a very old-fashioned style. As shivers started climbing up my spine, I sped up. I switched to the highest gear and started pedaling Armstrong style. I never took my eyes off of him, though. I noticed that the man had a top hat on, but no cane, which gave me just a tiny bit of relief; perhaps it’s just a random person walking, I lied to myself. When I got very close to him, I saw that his hands were lying empty in his lap, and there was no phone, newspaper, or any other entertainment around him that could possibly make him laugh. He was looking straight ahead of him, paying no attention to me.

  As I biked past him, he started laughing very loudly again. His eyes remained focused on a spot straight ahead of him, and I wasn’t sure why he was laughing, but I had a terrible feeling it was related to me. Not wanting to find out what this man’s deal was, I kept on pedaling. When I got a good distance ahead, I turned around and saw that he hadn’t moved an inch and was still staring somewhere in the distance.

  I finally made it to Hyannis, cursing at myself for the stupidity of my actions. My plan was to get on a bus that would take me back to Provincetown, since 50 miles biked was more than enough for me. However, when I made it to the bus stop, I was in for an unpleasant surprise. The only two bike racks on the bus were already taken. The driver, who I assume had to deal with these situations before, denied my several pleas to let me inside the bus with the bike. He stated some policy violations and told me that if I biked to a mid-point between the two towns, I could catch another bus that’d take me home. This meant that I’d have to go back on the bike trail, at night at that. Since my brilliant plan was to take only a few bucks with me, neither a hotel nor a cab were options. Spending the night roaming around the unfamiliar city or biking back through the foggy road were the only two things I could do. Again, I’m a fucking moron, but I convinced myself that the man on the trail was perfectly normal and probably wouldn’t be there when I returned. I decided to bike.

  When I entered the bike path, my heartbeat involuntarily sped up. I just felt… uneasy. Knowing that I’d reached a point of no return, I shook my head and kept plowing through the fog. A mile or two on the road, I noticed something on the ground ahead. This was strange since the trail maintenance crew was more than diligent when cleaning the trash, and you could hardly see any garbage, especially on the path itself. I slowed down. The thing on the ground was a GI Joe action figure. It looked nearly new. I figured that some kid had dropped it while biking with his dad. I sat back on my bike and kept going. Another mile or so, I noticed something else lying on the ground. At that point, I knew something was wrong. No parent would let his or her kid litter that much. Getting closer to the thing, I recognized what it was. A basketball. Not just any basketball, a chess-themed basketball.

  Now, when I was a kid, basketball was my whole life. I played it, watched it, practiced it, you know, lived it, basically. I was out-of-this-world excited when my city organized a basketball tournament. I gathered the best team I could find and had many sleepless nights replaying all possible scenarios in my head. When the game day arrived, we were notified that only two teams in our category had showed up, which meant that we’d be getting awards and gifts whether we won or lost. Apparently, my team wasn’t as good as I dreamt it to be, so we got our asses kicked. Nice thing was, though, that we got to go to the sports store and choose an item up to a certain price. All of my friends chose jerseys, shoes, etc. My attention, however, was caught by a unique chessboard basketball. The ball had 64 squares on it, 32 black and 32 white. I’ve never seen something like that before, so at risk of being made fun of by my teammates, I chose that as my reward. The funny thing is, that ball was god-awfully designed, because playing with it for more than a few minutes would give me headaches. I guess that pattern was just not meant for a basketball. Since it was basically useless, and I still got made fun of for it, I decided to get rid of the ball. One day, on my way home, as I was crossing a bridge, I kicked it as hard as I could into the river and watched it float away.

  Twelve years later, I was holding the exact same ball in my hands, five thousand miles away from that bridge.

  Sometimes, when I’m under a great deal of stress (or fear), my legs start shaking. Well, at that moment, my legs wouldn’t move. My arms gave up too, so I dropped the ball and watched it roll off the trail. Realizing that I could be in serious danger, I forced myself to start moving. Remember how I said that I had reached the point of not giving a fuck? Well, apparently, finding the ball that my 15-year-old self had abandoned on the other side of the globe more than a decade ago did wonders. When I got back on the bike, my apathy was replaced by anger. I was furious. I wanted to hurt the people who were fucking with my life. I wanted to scream. Instead of all that, I started biking, using my anger to drive the pedals as hard as I could.

  After a mile or so, I spotted another object on the path. When I got close, I realized it was just a piece of wet newspaper. Not believing in coincidences, I stopped and looked at it. It was a newspaper from the college town I played basketball in. On the front page were my picture and an article telling about my life. If finding the ball and a GI Joe figure (which I now assumed was a toy from my childhood that I didn’t remember) wasn’t enough, the newspaper article lying on the trail confirmed that this whole thing was about me.

  I decided that I wouldn’t stop for anything again. Pedaling like a maniac, I passed by several more objects.

  An Iron Maiden shirt I bought for their concert in New Jersey 7 years ago.

  A picture of my family in a broken picture frame.

  A Bart Simpson keychain I used to carry around in elementary school.

  At that point, I wasn’t sure if my pulse was going wild because of the fear or cycling so fast. Probably a combination of both. A
nd the faster I’d pedal, the more often I’d stumble upon objects. I wasn’t even paying attention to them as I just wanted to get the fuck out of this foggy trail. Then, I saw a dead cat lying on the ground. It awfully resembled my kitten Pipi that I owned back when I was a kid. As I approached to look at the poor animal and see if, by some crazy fucking miracle, it was my kitty, I heard laughter again. Only this time, it was a young girl laughing. I looked up and saw a woman sitting on the bench not more than ten feet away from me. She wore a white dress. There was no doubt.

  It was Rose.

  For the second time that day, my legs nearly quit working. I don’t know what I expected, really. Did I think it was just a coincidence that my childhood memories were spread across the bike trail? Did I not think it was related to the fucking woman with the orange? I don’t know. But still, seeing Rose sitting there sent a wave of fear into my body. And then, the fear inside me was replaced by anger once again. I wanted to end this. I wanted to know why she was ruining my life. I wanted answers, and I was going to get them.

  With bravery fueled by frustration, I walked slowly towards Rose. She was still calmly sitting on the bench, smiling with those damn bright red lips and looking at me with her head tilted to the side. I faltered slightly as she came into clear view and I could see that she hadn’t aged at all in the ten years I hadn’t seen her. Even that couldn’t stop me, though.

  “Sit,” Rose ordered in my native language.

  “No,” I answered firmly, wanting to let her know that, this time, I wasn’t fucking around.

  “You’ve been a very stubborn boy, Milos.”

  I snapped.

  “What in the fuck do you want from me?!” I screamed. The knot of fear and anger in my chest was expanding. “What possible reason can there be for all this shit? You’re ruining my life!”

  “No need to yell, Milos,” she answered, smiling, unfazed.