The Tomato
by Emily Woodworth
The tomato sits on my small, round red table, ripe with possibilities. I emerge from my bedroom, start the coffee, and am halfway through making my morning omelette before I notice it. Now I cannot look away and my omelette is burning.
I know the tomato is a problem. How big a problem is unclear just yet. Some might contend it is a problem consistent with the stature of the tomato itself. But who’s to say a problem of this size is not a large problem in other ways? I tear myself from my stunned contemplation of the offending vegetable (or is it a fruit?) to check the deadbolt. It is fastened securely, just as I left it last night. My alarm is armed. My windows are nailed shut. The bars are strong and whole.
Is it possible that I am the culprit? Could I have purchased a single tomato myself, placed it here on this table in grand estate, and have no memory of such actions?
This path tends toward madness.
I must choose another: someone, somehow broke into my apartment and placed this tomato on my table, precisely and unhurriedly in its center.
Suddenly my fortress feels porous and inadequate. I realize that it has always been so, but this presentation of knowledge without an accompanying action—my death, for instance—is inconsistent, and takes my legs out from under me. I turn off the stove, pour myself a cup of coffee, and take a seat at the table to contemplate this atrocity.
The tomato repels my repugnant looks, and rejects all questions regarding its arrival. I stare at its scarlet flesh, perfectly smooth and offering my thoughts no purchase, no texture to grab hold of.
“What is your message?” I ask it. Being a tomato, it cannot respond. I take a sip of my coffee. I can’t help but see a threat reflected back at me in its shining surface. It is a show of power, this small piece of produce in the center of my table, that much is clear. They wanted me to know that they could enter and exit my apartment undetected. They wanted me to see that I was vulnerable. They wanted me to have a tomato.
I stare at the tomato, waiting for something. If this is a warning, then what does it signify? I consider again the question: is this a fruit or a vegetable? I have heard it both ways. Tomatoes are the most indefinite of foods, and I have always avoided them, not for any dislike toward their taste or texture, but because I cannot brook their indeterminate nature—they fit nowhere in a world where everything has a place.
Is this, then, the meaning of this tomato? Have I been found unclear? Unkillable because I am undefinable?
I reflect on this. I have always lived my life like the others, in action and in word. I have observed the large sporting events, the worldwide entertainment releases, and acted out the gusto of those around me. Observing their collective fears, I have purchased the newest security systems. I have updated my locks every six months. I have not once taken the nails out of my window frames, even on hot, sticky summer nights when I have lain in bed and soaked through the sheets and whispered to the ceilings—the floorboards of the room above me—that I would trade my soul for a breeze.
I sip my coffee again.
I set my mug down.
I stop.
I realize that I have sipped my coffee only because I think it’s what another person might do when their thoughts have stalled, and not for any sincere need of coffee. In this action I comprehend some sliver of the tomato, or what I imagine could be a meaning attached to it. Perhaps it is a symbol of my own mimicry. Perhaps I have never sincerely sipped coffee—or anything at all—and this tomato is a sign that my insincerity has set me in a category like the tomato’s. Enigmatic. Other. And worse still, others have noticed; others have broken in to show me they’ve noticed. They’ve weighed me, and found me wanting.
I set my coffee down as sincerely as I can, then switch seats again for another view of the tomato. It is an outstanding specimen of its species, as far as that goes. Plump, unspoiled by irregularities in its spheroid shape, too perfect for eating. I carefully reach toward it, but my hand stalls halfway. It seems sacred, sitting there in the center of my table, as if it were on an altar. To touch it might violate some unknown rule and deepen whatever trouble I am already in.
Why could they not just kill me and steal my valuables? Why the tomato?
A new thought: is the tomato an act of mercy, a chance for me to redeem myself from whatever breach I have committed against the natural order?
I flee the tomato for a moment. I reheat my burnt omelette and eat it standing with my back to the table. I wish I could leave my apartment. But if the tomato means anything at all, I must uncover it before I do. This tomato is surely a harbinger. It proves that I have been discovered. But what has been discovered about me, and can I discover it for myself so that I can tip the balance one way or the other—toward life or death?
To understand its presence, I must question myself, incisively and unwaveringly.
I return to the table. I sit in a different seat to contemplate a new angle. As I look at the tomato from this seat, I decide that it must be a second chance. Why leave me alive otherwise? I must divine something from it.
I stare fixedly. I blink sparingly. I recall again the indefinite quality of tomatoes that has made me recoil from them.
For the first time, I touch the tomato. It is as smooth and silky as it looks. Beautiful. I heft the tomato. It is heavier than it appears. The feeling of it in my hand is familiar. It reminds me of something. It reminds me of itself. It reminds me of myself. Surely, I have touched this tomato before. Here, I hold myself; here, I have discovered myself. It was I who weighed myself in the balance, hefted myself in my hand, and found myself wanting. And then I left myself here. This tomato, the sign unto me of my judgment.
(But no, I must resist this path, for here lies madness!)
I set down the tomato, sip my coffee, and begin again.
Emily Woodworth's work has appeared in Under the Sun, Crannóg Magazine, Inkwell Journal, and others. She received a Notable Mention in Best American Essays 2018 (ed. Hilton Als), an Honorable Mention in the 2020 Anton Chekov Prize for Very Short Fiction (New Flash Fiction Review), and has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. In 2020, she received her MFA in Writing (emphasis in Image + Text) from California Institute of the Arts. As a descendant of the Karuk Tribe, she enjoys studying and deconstructing tropes of the Western canon, exploring hybrid identities, and remaking old myths.
