Deonna Kelli Sayed

This is a true story.

A psychic-vampire friend, someone who has been on TV more than once or twice, personally delivered a magical ritual to help sever my romantic attachment to a doomed, failed affair.

You do understand, of course, that these rituals aren’t really magical except in the sheer will that we put in to them.

Her instructions where simple:
– Take an apple and cut it in half
– Inscribe your lover’s name in one half
– Inscribe your name in the other and take one bite out of it to signify personal restoration
– Bury the two different halves in the earth (but not together, of course).

I did just that. I split a red apple, inscribed the names, and took two bites (just to be sure) of my half because I needed extra-special magic to relocate my inner self after what had been a messy, uncertain year.

His side, my beguiled lover, was buried in the woods in a pile of leaves. He is water element, and I gave his assigned pulp to the earth in hopes that his next relationship would develop roots.

I am earth element, so I delivered my apple into the water of a flowing creek in a park adjacent to my home. I did not want to be tied to land but to move steady to the next stop on my journey.

My apple-side dropped into the water along with a few tired tears. With that, I said a small prayer and let it go. What relief to find that the apple bobbed at slow pace down the creek. Apples generally float, of course, but this apple slice carried such heavy heart weight that I had feared it would sink.

The current propelled it forward at super-slow speed. That is OK, I told myself. Life is like that. You think you are dawdling along until you hit a high velocity undercurrent. Then you land on a new shore.

***

A week later, I cut across the field to do my daily walk.

Something squishy was underfoot.

I peeped down to see a brown, damp half-apple with two bites (and teeth marks) in one corner.

Surely, this unfortunately apple could not be my apple. What were the chances, right?

Closer inspection revealed remaining remnants of letters inscribed in the soggy, remarkably well-preserved flesh.

Of all open, green space in this vast city park, how is it that my apple – my cosmic severance – landed right back on my path. Even with magic and quantum intentions, what statistical probability deemed this possible? How did the fruit find its way from the water to creek bank to a grassy knoll underneath the very feet of the woman who spawned it?

There is much magic in the world. But no magic tells a lovesick woman what to do with a beached apple that has her name on it.