My writing of late has been quite an underachievement, so I have come to rely on writing prompts to get my juices flowing. Firing up my writing prompt of the day I found these innocuous words: Put your favorite fruit in a life or death situation. This is how I came to write “Death by Avocado”. The avocado is not just my favorite fruit, but my favorite food, as well. “Food of the gods,” I call it. Though some may quibble that the avocado is not a fruit, but a vegetable. Last time I checked, fruits come with seeds and only one seed is necessary as in the case of the avocado or the banana. Well the banana is a close runner up to my favorite fruit, but need I digress.
Many a day I thought, “What would be the best way to free my life from my ex-husband.” I thought of warfarin, rat poison, which is used to treat blood clots and readily available. Thanks to advances in medicine now there are other drugs like Xarelto to keep you from stroking out. Other poison options would be strychnine or oleander. I had no idea how to obtain either or how to mix just the right potion to do the lethal damage. Thankfully, I didn’t have to go the poisoning route. Nor did I need to wish him a heart attack. I was relieved of my excess baggage without the risk of going to jail.
In a wind thrashing wet storm a branch from my father’s avocado tree came down because it couldn’t sustain the weight of the hundreds of fruit and the added water. My former husband, who to my chagrin still lived on the property, upon inspecting the damage to the tree was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right time as I saw it. Avocados are known to fall like coconuts. At my father’s ranch we heard many a fruit make a hard thud on the plastic corrugated roof of the patio. We were always alarmed and wished Chicken Little had given his warning, “The sky is falling.” So when my ex took a closer look at the storm damage, he was struck on the center of the crown which triggered a fall. Coming down his head struck a rock at just the right spot. Death was instantaneous. Thus, Death by Avocado. Another reason to love this fruit.
What will tomorrow’s prompt be?
©April 2016
