There are a few levels to the fruit stand. Today, just like yesterday, I was asked to go to another level to see if a door had been left open. It may have been left open but it was not intentional. A delivery is made and when the delivery person leaves the door does not close completely.
So I get a call to check out the other level, walking past a few nondescript people and when I open one to door to check the opther door, there is a vacuum which closes the door that was ajar. Then it’s a walk and a lift to the level I generally work on, past the fruit pickers to tell the security bee that everything is taken care of.
It’s been that kind of day. There was an entourage that strolled in. They didn’t pay much attention to me, and they don’t have to. I am just the gatekeeper at this fruit stand. And I am fine with that position. I’m not picking fruit, i am not planting seeds, I am just manning the fruit stand and whatever requests might come across my way.
Right now the temperature is 95° with a real feel temperature of 105°. Despite that, I did go outside for about a half hour. I sat in the shade and puffed a nice Plasencia cigar. Nice size, decent ring gauge and overall a very pleasant little cigar. I look forward to having one again and again.
I rediscovered the Every Noise at Once website which has just about every type of music listed from around the world. It is sort of a companion to Radio Garden which has radio station signals from around the world, situated on a globe which one can spin and check out music from Dublin, Ireland or Colombo, Sri Lanka, or Montenegro.
The woman who cleans the fruit stand during the day is from Montenegro, so I played a few stations from there. The music was mostly in English and they do like the late Gregory Isaacs and his lovers rock reggae.
Mike is at his crib, Bill is at his gym and I am at the fruit stand. Yancy was here this morning, and it was not as bad as I anticipated, and it is never as bad as I anticipated. I’ve just been snacking all day, opting for fruit from the stand for lunch. A chilled orange and soon a banana.
Marcus has been asking my opinion regarding suits and I advised him as much as I could. He is looking to leave the fruit stand and I am hoping that he doesn’t but he says five years at the fruit stand is more than enough for him and he’s looking elsewhere, to the world of finance where I worked a couple of times in the past.
I told him that it is not as ‘laid back’ as the fruit stand and he realizes that, it’s just that familiarity breeds contempt and he is getting overly familiar with the fruit stand life and all it entails.
Google Gemini rewrite as a James Joyce essay
## The Gatekeeper’s Soliloquy: Epiphanies of the Pomiferous Stall
### I. The Pneumatic Labyrinth
The tiers of our pomiferous temple rise, layer upon layer, a ziggurat of citrus and stone-fruit. Today, a repetition of yesterday’s liturgy: a summons to ascend, to inspect the threshold, to see if some transient messenger of crates had left a portal unlatched. A delivery made, a hasty exit, and the door remains half-breathed, ajar.
I tread the grey concrete past the silent, nondescript spectres of the corridor. I extend a hand to the handle. *Ah.* The sudden, indrawn breath of the building—a pneumatic sigh, a vacuum’s quiet gasp—pulls the door shut with a decisive, metallic *click*. The gap is healed. Then, the long pedestrian return, the mechanical lift bearing me back to my accustomed sphere, past the bent backs of the fruit-pickers. I offer my report to the apian sentinel of our security, the buzzing drone of the gate, that all is well in the kingdom of the orchard.
It has been a day of such minor, drifting orbits. An entourage swept through earlier, a brief gale of self-importance, heedless of my station. Let them pass. I am but the gatekeeper of this verdant stall, the quiet watcher at the threshold, and the role fits me like an old coat. I sow no seeds; I pluck no hanging boughs. I merely tend the gate and answer the silent, shifting currents of the day.
—
### II. The Noon-Heat and the Leaf
Outside, the dog days have settled with a heavy, brassy weight. The glass mercury registers ninety-five degrees, though the heavy, humid air whispers a stifling lie of one hundred and five to the complaining skin. Yet, I sought the sun’s glare for a brief half-hour, retreating into the cool, dark sanctuary of the shade.
“`
[The Solace of the Shade]
| Plasencia Cigar: A sturdy, dark cylinder
| Ring Gauge: Generous, comforting heft
| The Smoke: A blue, aromatic coil rising into the thick heat
“`
There, I lit a Plasencia cigar—a stout, honest smoke with a generous ring gauge. The rich, nutty blue smoke curled upward into the thick air, a momentary incense. A very pleasant companion, indeed. I shall return to that tobacco-dream again.
—
### III. The Global Ether
The mind, restless, wandered into the digital ether. I drifted back to that vast cartography of sound, *Every Noise at Once*, a dizzying catalog of the world’s acoustic impulses. It is a sibling to the *Radio Garden*, where one spins a glowing, green-dotted globe to eavesdrop on the world’s breathing.
A flick of the finger and one is in Dublin, listening to the damp, rain-soaked chatter of the Liffey; another turn, and the signal leaps to Colombo, or the rugged, sun-bleached cliffs of Montenegro.
> Our daytime scrub-woman hails from those Balkan peaks. To ease her labor, I summoned the waves from her homeland. Yet, what did the Montenegrin ether yield? Not the traditional gusle or folk-laments, but the smooth, syncopated riddims of the late Gregory Isaacs. The Cool Ruler himself, crooning his lovers rock reggae through the European static. A strange, beautiful collision of shores.
—
### IV. The Fruit of Contempt
The midday table is simple. Mike remains cocooned in his domestic crib; Bill strains his sinews in some distant gymnasium. Yancy arrived this morning—a visitation I had anticipated with a familiar dread, though, as always, the spectres of the mind are far more terrible than the flesh. It is never as bad as the fancy paints it.
My nourishment has been the very merchandise of my stall.
* First, a chilled orange, its skin a pebbled, icy sphere weeping cold dew.
* Soon, the pale, soft crescent of a banana.
Young Marcus has been whispering of his departure, soliciting my counsel on the cut and drape of suits. He longs to shed the fruit-stained garments of the stall for the austere, ledgered temples of Finance—a cold world where I once spent my own youth. I warned him of the dry, unyielding nature of those counting-houses. It lacks the easy, drifting grace of our orchard.
But he is deaf to the warning. Five years of apples and pears have soured on his tongue. Familiarity, that old alchemist, has bred its usual contempt. He looks upon our quiet harbor and sees only a cage, unaware that the open sea he craves is filled with sharper winds.