Ying Meng

·Sep 23, 2025

Fruit Class

In the Fruit Class, children are said to ripen into heavy, gleaming fruit. One morning I follow the insects into blotches of sticky color; when I reach out, it’s a tentacle—I am an ant. The classroom swells into a land of giants. I flee, drown myself, wake again, still in the Fruit Class. My classmates say no one ever promised we would ripen. Growing up is a metamorphosis where sweetness and fear arrive together.