ORANGES by Johnny Payne

Rats scrambled out of sewers and cellars and ate oranges from the trees that had sprung up overnight.  They’d kept quiet for so long that inhabitants scarcely knew they were there. The townspeople were disgusted by the sudden hordes of rats, their whiskers quivering with sticky juice, imagining them to be harboring disease.  As long as they’d remained out of sight, occasionally attacking a random passerby or an unfortunate person sleeping on the street or in the park, no one complained.  No one asked whether they had an underground lair or lay dormant for long periods of time.  Afraid they were going to be attacked, the city prepared, workers checking the condition of gas masks and canisters as they deliberated whether to embark on a mass fumigation.

Then something happened.  The more the rats ate, the sleepier and seemingly content they became.  They lay atop each other in packs, dozing and bothering no one.  To be sure, the city ran tests on some they caught, in laboratories, and found them disease-free.  Perhaps the oranges had cured them.  Perhaps in fact they held a key to survival.  The town suffered from chronic malnutrition, so they began also to eat the oranges, curious as to the effects of this bounty that had appeared out of nowhere, just like the rats.  This fruit was delicious, sweet and tangy beyond any reckoning.  As they feasted, the citizens grew not fat, but sturdy; not overexcited, but happy and calm, trusting as never before.  Some even approached the rats, now as large as dogs, to pet them.  The rats were docile, nuzzling the outstretched hands, before scampering off to play or sleep or eat more oranges.

Eventually, those from the poorer district came over in their pickup trucks and picked large quantities from the trees, afraid the fruit would become scarce, and they were always the last to have access to any foodstuffs when supplies dwindled.  There existed only around one hundred orange trees altogether, and even though they yielded continuously, there were comparatively few for a town of that size.  Until then, no one had thought much about the number of trees relative to the people.  Then, it was suggested that if the trees stopped yielding at their current rate, there wouldn’t be enough to go around.  The orange trees sat on public lands.  Some people began to clamor that each tree should be parceled off by a lottery, assigned to someone’s yard, and the losers could be offered a graft to plant.  Fights broke out, resulting finally in a murder.  Before riots and the uprooting of the trees could start, the mayor announced a program to take grafts and plant new trees, not in people’s yards, but on public land, in the medians, school yards and parks.  There was skepticism, but the new trees grew so fast that before long, orange trees covered the city and the suburbs.  Everyone was well fed and seemed pleased.  Public health was better than ever before.  No one reported a disease, nor even a cold.  The supermarkets closed because no other food was needed.  The rats, wherever they’d come from, had gone back into hibernation.  The dogs and cats ate the orange rinds and their coats shone.

Then new troubles began.  Certain citizens began, in defiance of the law, to take cuttings and plant saplings on their property, against the city ordinance, for the oranges were considered a public good.  There was no conceivable need to sell them.  The mayor gave a stern speech on television, lecturing the citizens on polity and comity, two pillars of civilized coexistence.  Yet some of the town’s dwellers persisted in planting their own groves, and it was said, began to experiment with hybrids such as tangelos and mandarins, even mangos, and with possible extracts for other purposes.  At first, the city left the situation alone, but in time, these persons hired security guards for the grove compounds, limiting access.  The mayor this time gave warning, threatening rather than coaxing, and finally sent swat teams wearing flak and black helmets to seize control of the illegal groves.  The grove owners retaliated by beginning to burn down public groves, and hired thugs and mercenaries to beat, maim, and sometimes kill anyone who intervened.  Disinformation spread about the public oranges being diseased, and the hybrid oranges being the only healthy ones, and many citizens began to neglect eating the ones on public lands, so that they began to fall from the trees and rot, untouched.  A black market set up, with only small numbers of oranges available in secret and ever-changing locations, to drive the price up and up.  Before long, people were spending their savings, hoarding if they could afford it, and fistfights and worse broke out by those waiting to buy fruit.  As the city council and the mayor failed to respond, ignoring the problem except to guard the neglected trees, full riots began to break out.  They began as orange protests and ended as looting, rape, assault, and buildings being burned.  Some people had spent their life savings.  There was talk of assassinating the mayor and someone did try before the assailant was wrestled to the ground in handcuffs.  Now the mayor went everywhere under guard, in a bullet-proof car, while rumors about him spread—that he was the one who had poisoned the oranges, that he was planning to stay in power forever.  A coup was being plotted to overthrow him and put the private citrus growers in power.

The mayor knew he had to do something.  He used the city’s financial reserves to buy from faraway towns other foods, the ones they used to eat:  beef, chicken, broccoli, potatoes, beans, apples, wheat.  Trucks distributed the food for free.  For a few days, everyone was elated.  They ate their fill, no longer thinking about the oranges piling up and rotting all over town.  In fact, it felt good to fill their bodies with protein and fat and carbohydrates.  They couldn’t stop eating. It was pleasant to have their guts groaning, filled to bursting. 

Then the first person got sick.  After her, others.  They vomited and had diarrhea.  Some died, as if from cholera.  Children lay in their beds, glassy-eyed. They couldn’t tolerate the food.  Had it somehow contaminated their organisms?  No one knew whether the disease was contagious, and a combination of hysteria and fear welled up.  They wanted to riot again, but the citizens were either too weak, or else in hiding to avoid contact with others who might pass on the supposed disease.  Nobody was eating anything, and they began to starve.  Many died and no one went to collect their bodies or even put yellow tape or hazard signs around their property.

The orange grove owners, though alarmed, in another way felt this rotten food phase was all to their advantage.  The survivors might now want to return to eating oranges.  Just then, the rats, who had long been absent, began to appear.  Sniffing the oranges, the ones that had made them eventually as large as German Shepherds, rats spread out over the streets littered with bodies and began to eat the corpses of the dead.  Their sharp teeth led their narrow faces further inward as they burrowed through decomposing flesh.  Like the townspeople, in their first flush of post-orange delirium, the rats had recovered their taste for meat. 

In time, the remaining humans died or fled and only the rats remained in the town, wandering among skeletons and decomposed oranges, sniffing the citrus flower and its perfume before moving on in search of any remaining morsel of humanity. 

About the Author:

Johnny Payne's work has recently appeared in Neon Door, Gasher Journal, Sparks of Calliope, Society for Classical Poets, The Chained Muse, Collidescope, Peregrine Journal, The New Lyre, Pulsebeat, and Soundings East. His most recent published novels are THE HARD SIDE OF THE RIVER and CONFESSIONS OF A GENTLEMAN KILLER, which won the IBPA Gold Medal for Horror in2021. His books of poetry VASSAL and HEAVEN OF ASHES were published by Mouthfeel Press. He has directed his plays DEATH BY ZEPHYR and CANNIBALS for Slingshot Players,

About the Artist:

At the present time Kateryna Bortsova is a painter / graphic artist with a BFA in graphic arts and an MFA. Works of Kateryna took part in many international exhibitions (Taiwan, Berlin, Munich, Spain, Italy, USA etc.). She also won the silver medal in the category “realism” in the “Factory of visual art”, New York, USA and the 2015 Emirates Skywards Art of Travel competition, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.