Pith

Flash Fiction by Saehee Cho

Saehee Cho lives and works in Los Angeles. As a child, she snacked on McDonald’s french fries, but now she prefers Burger King french fries, but really any french fry will do.

I peel the clementine, exposing a clean segmented surface. The skin is pleasingly taut as I run the pad of my thumb along the vein between two segments. I note the absence of bitter pith and marvel at the genius of science, of genetically modified fruits, at even the assumed insignificance of pith. I picture two scientists in a laboratory—the space, their clothes, everything crisp white. Up to their knees in oranges. Valencia. Navel. Blood. Persian. The scientists pull at the dimpled rind under a telescope, peel back the webbed pith with a scalpel until they strike yielding flesh, and they look at each other wide eyed, amazed, as if they’ve discovered a magma center.