Dear Sylvia Esther,

 

I suppose it’s safer for us to use aliases when exposing our woes and peeling back
the rug that conceals the messy inner monologues of our souls which we’ve swept
under it.

 

I find myself sitting under a fig tree, considering your Esther’s metaphorical analysis
from 70 years prior. I consider each fig, and the wonderful future that beckons from
each.

 

One fig is a girl whose parents saw her passion for the arts and fed her dreams until
she filled the shoes of a brilliant actress. One fig is a girl who fell in love with a boy
she knew in high school and worked a boring, albeit stable, job as an accountant.
One fig is a woman who moved to New York City to pursue a dignified career in
fashion, toasting champagne glasses and wearing designer dresses, but returning
each evening to a modest, studio apartment. One is a yoga instructor, finding internal
peace and projecting it forward into the world around her. One is a magnificent
author, signing her books at a cafe meet and greet.

 

Well, Sylvia Esther, I learned from your mistakes, and I did not want the figs to rot. So,
I climbed the trunk and grabbed the first fig and bit off half of it. The juice paraded
about my tongue and it was so sweet, but my parents told me that that fig was no
good. In my tug-of-war battle against them, the fig rotted in my palm.

 

The boy I knew from my high school walked by, and he pointed to another fig at the
end of my vision. I climbed to the next branch and I lengthened every fiber of muscle
from my shoulder to the tips of my fingers until I wrapped my grip around the fig,
and again, bit off half of it. It looked so sweet from the outside, but I realized that it
was a façade. It was dry and had dusty mold growing on the inside. I spit it out
before it could poison me, and the other half rotted in my palm.

 

I reached for a different one, a fig that everyone revered. It was popular and

beautiful, everyone would point to it as they passed by the tree. I was one of the
lucky few who could climb high enough to pluck it off a branch. But when I bit into
half of it, and it was sour, I wondered why everyone wanted it so badly. My mouth
puckered and salivated, and in my hesitation to take another bite, it rotted in my
palm.

 

So, then I decided to go for a fig that looked simple but nice, one that nearly
everyone could reach if they put their mind to it. There was nothing extraordinary
about it, but I just wanted one fig. So I shifted around the tree again and I pulled it
down. I resigned to sit on the branch and eat it in serenity, so I bit off half of it. It was
lovely, and someone wiser than I might have been content, but I wasn’t sure that it
was the best fig on the tree. As I looked around considering if another would taste
better, the juice dripping down from the corners of my mouth, it rotted in my palm.

 

Maybe these figs are rotting just so I don’t get full on the wrong one. Maybe they’ll all
rot until I climb to the right fig and sink my teeth fiercely into its purple flesh. Maybe
all of them must rot so I can find the one fig, but God, I’d like to just have one. I’d like
to know that somewhere on this tree, there is a fig that grew just for the intention of
finding my mouth. But my dearest Sylvia Esther, knowing is not a luxury you and I are
afforded.

 

I see your figs, whose ripeness had expired before you had had a liberty to taste, and
I raise you my half-eaten figs, whose ripeness I was permitted to rejoice in for a brief
moment before the figs either proved to be unpromising or rotted in my hand. I raise
you my stomach which might fill, but will never be satisfied. I raise you the
condemnation of wandering like a whisper in the wind, sampling life but never having
something in its entirety. I raise you taking a bite of all but being a master of none.

 

Alas, this is no pity contest. You’re Esther is long gone, and yet as I dine on halves of
figs, I find myself in solidarity with the spirit of one of the loneliest women in the
world.

 

                                                                                                                                 Sincerely,

                                                                                               Madisen Christoffersen Alina

 

P.S. Despite my pessimist tone, I shall provide a silver lining and let you know that
there’s still a fig on the tree that entices me… it’s very high up, on the top branch,
actually. My skin pricks over the wood of the trunk as I begin my ascent. I may fall. It
may rot in my hand. But oh, I crave it so.