I've been writing weekly for the story cabal. In this contribution, I plagiarize shamelessly. If you've read the blog, you'll know from whom. Somewhat embarrassingly, it's about friendship:

It was their second week as housemates—he had given her a deal on rent because they were friendly acquaintances, though they had not yet established that friendship that would disappoint their parents because it seemed to be so time-consuming without promising grandchildren. It was their second week of living together, it was autumn, and he was teaching her how to eat a pomegranate.

You do not wear white. Because the skin is thick, you use the machete. As with watermelon in the summer, you must hack with gusto and then scrape with dexterity.

Their wrists intertwined over the bowl as they worked to extract the seeds. It is amazing to me, she said, how enjoyment between two individuals is possible on the basis of physical closeness. If you enjoy being close to me and I enjoy being close to you, we may enjoy each other’s presence quite apart from whatever else we may be doing.

As they were just friendly acquaintances, he looked up astonished, grabbed the machete, and accused her of sentimental poetical tendencies. She promised to develop a harsher social presence.

It was their third week as housemates and he was leaving the house to have dinner with the ballerina who obviously lacked gravitas. Did you know, she said, that the pomegranate retained its meaning as a fertility symbol in sixteenth century England?

No, he said. I have the feeling that is the sort of thing I should have picked up in university, but I seem to have misspent my formative years.

After that it became a joke. When she left for a bar, he would say: “Remember. Alcoholic intoxication may be pressed into the service of purely phallic aims or to bolster courage rather than to re-experience the earliest kind of communion. The pomegranate, however, denotes ‘plenty’ in a Masonic rite due to the exuberance of its seed. May your seed be exuberant!” In her turn, she would soothe him whenever the ballerina lacked gravitas, saying, “Woman is not only an anxious and a suffering animal, but she is above all a shy animal, easily caught and impaled between longing and despair. The prophet Mohammed said ‘eat the pomegranate for it purges the system of envy and hatred.’” And on his part, should she should fail to call the man whom she had met at the bar, he would swing the machete and quote Shakespeare: “Go to, sir; you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate; you are a vagabond and no true traveler!” adding apologetically, “Perhaps it meant something different in Italy.”

In the early weeks of summer, while they were talking like children and preparing watermelon together, to the continued dismay of their aging parents, he said, “It is amazing to me how shared enjoyment is possible if each likes to hear the voice of the other, quite apart from what the other is saying.” She put down the machete, thoughtfully, and quoted Pausanius’ whisper: “But about the pomegranate I must say nothing, for its story is something of a mystery.”