Story: Plum Wine

"Plum Wine" is a story I wrote several years ago as a project for a creative writing class. I'm still fond of it, though, so I'm posting it here. When my Web site is up, I'll post my stories there, but for the time being, I think I'm going to put a few up here. Comments, criticisms, and admonishments are welcome. Oh, and if you're someone who can publish my stories somewhere, the answer is probably, "Yes I do have other stories you can look at." Right. That was mildly cocky. Enjoy.

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It’s a hot day. The sun has been beating down for hours on the outside wall of my apartment. The bricks absorb the light and cleverly transform it into heat, effectively turning my three rooms into an oven. I have no air conditioner to cool me; the ceiling fan only circulates the hot air without changing its temperature at all, or providing any relief from the stuffiness. It's becoming difficult to breathe. My skin is crisping to a golden brown. I decide I need to leave my apartment, but the temperature outside is just as bad, just as all-enveloping. The entire city has been transformed into an oven.

What I need is something Japanese. My father once told me that the Japanese are always very cool-skinned, no matter what the weather is like, and I have absolutely no reason to doubt the truth of this statement. I leave my apartment and resolve to find a bottle of plum wine.

In the city people look as though they have melted. They wallow limply in the shade, toweling their heads with cloths soaked in river water. The streets are crowded with cars whose owners have abandoned them in favor of juice bars and ice cream parlors, or to congregate along the banks of the river. I can see them down by the water's edge, stripping down to their underwear and splashing each other, like children. I walk down Main Street, periodically dabbing the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve, marveling at the emptiness. This heat wave is the apocalypse, I think, the breakdown of civilization as we know it. Soon we will have to abandon the cities and make our way back to the trees. I shake my fist at the sun. The bright yellow eye stares back, nonchalant, and burns my scalp.

At the wine market, I search for my drink, but bafflingly, there is none. The man at the counter grins at me giddily and summons me over to him. He tells me they cannot keep the plum wine for long. He is a plump Frenchman whose lungs have been destroyed by a years of smoking. With each breath, he wheezes, having to force the air past layers of tar. He clutches his great belly, as though wrestling against its further expansion. He explains that the plum wine is too delicate to keep. In such hot weather, it sours if it stays in their storerooms for more than an afternoon. Every day they have to drink their stock or they'll be stuck with worthless bottles of vinegar, and they have just finished with the last of it today. It's the reason he's in such a good mood. He tells me I can take an empty bottle if I like, and that I should wait by the river for nightfall if I want to cool off.

I take my bottle and thank him, then I leave the wine market and make my way to the river. At the edge of the banks, I take off my shoes and hop like a coal walker across the burning sand toward my relief in the cool water. The mood of the people around me is one of friendliness and relaxation, or community and fun. Neighbors who haven't ever spoken to each other in years swim together and splash water. Rival shopkeepers sit on the banks, dabbling their toes in the water and talk about their childhoods and make plans for their mutual benefit. I realize that if this heat wave will bring about the end of all civilization as we know it, it will also bring about the beginning of a new community. I smile at the thought, as I strip off my clothes and wade out into one of the pools.

An elderly Asian man who I recognize from the wine market wades up to me in the pool and greets me with a courteous nod. I nod back to him, and we strike up a conversation and float on our backs in the river, staring at the sky. We talk about our days, about the apocalyptic feel of the city, about the freakish heat wave that has hit us and rendered everyone unable to work. I tell him about the wine and my thwarted plans to cool off with a bottle of plum wine and he tells that his sister makes plum wine. He apologizes immediately after, saying that the recipe is an old family secret, which he would not dare betray. Mostly all that is involved is patience, he explains.

Suddenly there is a loud hush over the crowd. The setting sun has hit the water and been extinguished. The once blazing orb has settled into a minor hue of lavender. In the water it bobs for a moment, then begins to sink. As it settles to rest in the gravely riverbed, its purple skin tears on a jagged rock, exposing the pinkish pulp within. Fluid leaks into the river from within it, and the water turns pink with the juice. I dip my bottle into the reddening water and sip the excess off the top. It is reminiscent of lemon drops and honey. I drink deep from the bottle and fall back against the bank with my head in the sand, feeling cool, ecstatic, drunk.