Forest Thicket - published by Rambutan #5, 2018

Without any other way to record what must be recorded, these fragments continued.

         The man with the turned right eye usually found on the Block 2 Void Deck either at one card-table or the other, observing from the side usually; striped red, blue & white polo cycling through the estate; sometimes seated by the passage legs up on the railing.

         Good mornings, ni haos, zhao uns and how are you? This morning on the return from the teh and newspaper the same. Going out earlier there had been the same.

         After the second pass this morning a short wait was needed at the lift, where unexpectedly from around the corner the man suddenly appeared. He did not live in D Block; he had never been encountered there. 

         — I give you mango. Abruptly thrusting a red plastic bag at the shnozz and pulling back the cover either side.

         — Verrrry nice! As if afraid he might be disbelieved and his offering rejected.

         After a momentary start it was clear the chap wasn't kidding; man knew his fruit. 
         A hard, green specimen of average-small size, yet the perfume emanating was difficult to credit; more than substantiating the man's claim. An exploding grenade of richest heady perfume. 
         One hundred to one this was not supermarket product, and far from it. The fellow had access to a tree somewhere in deepest forest where trunks crowded each other and the foliage shredded the light; he knew where, as the old story-tellers would have said.

         Like everyone else, the man had observed the fruit carried in hand day after day up to Doreen’s flat, naked oranges, apples and the yellow Thai mangoes usually that gave only the most trifling scent. In his keeping this man had an appropriate gift for the stranger. Even late night from the entryway returning housemates remarked upon the fragrance.

         How to return something fitting now was the question.
         A couple of days later when the man was thanked again for his gift and the fabulous bouquet underlined, chap was surprised it had not yet been tasted. The hardness made no never mind, the fruit was ripe. It was in fact fallen fruit, not picked. After two days it would be "spoiled ready."
         In season a fig they used to give as an offering to children, friends and passers-by on the Montenegrin coast between the wars (and proverbially of course one would not give the same for anything less than worthy); an apple, orange or almonds and walnuts too from the fortunate ones in possession. Kampung folk easily identifiable here over the void decks, sitting on the steel benches, under the care of the dark-skinned maids and pacing the aisles under the supermarket fluro, old ways retained.