The Pear

The woman was sitting under a pear tree when I found her. Knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them, head tilted back against the bark. Her eyes were open but not looking at anything.

I sat down a few feet away and waited.

She turned after a while. Brown hair. A face that showed a lot of living. She studied me the way people do when they can't figure out why I look so young.

"How long have you been sitting there?" she asked.

"Not long."

She rubbed her eyes with her palms. "I can't get used to this. The air. The weight of my own body. I feel like I'm thirty again. I keep expecting something to hurt."