Founded in the fall of 1991, Laurel Moon is Brandeis' oldest, national literary publication. Each issue we publish features original work from undergraduate students.
The fig tree in my grandmother’s yard used to bear fruit in the summer. Come pick teen, Teta would whisper after the last bud of spring. Her arms would lift me into the sky so my grubby fingers could latch onto the purpliest, plumpest of figs. My sharp nails would scratch the fragile skin as I twisted the fruit from its branch. I loved the twist, the final pull of resistance before it relented to my strength. Too slow meant the drip of white sap from the branch’s nub would coat my fingers. It would stick to me stubbornly like the fig jam we’d cook for winter, gluing together my fingers until I licked it off. As summers passed, the tree yielded less and less, and Teta’s hands wrinkled more with age until she couldn’t lift me up anymore. Soon, I was left reaching for the sky on my own two feet. Now she uses store-bought figs. The tree lays barren in her yard slouched and gnarled like a bitter old hag.
Today I ate her fig jam and couldn’t taste my childhood under the sugar. My tongue shriveled at the flavor of foreign sun as I fled to the unfamiliar familiar tree, placing my hand onto it. At my touch the pores opened to let out that white, sticky sap. And as the sap coated my fingers, my hands, my arms, my torso, I wriggled and wiped at it until it swallowed my skin. But then it touched my lips. My tongue. My tastebuds. And I smiled so wide that the sap tore my skin. It tasted just how I remembered.
Sophie Najm is a young Lebanese American author from the San Fernando Valley. She’s a UCSB undergraduate for Writing & Literature, and has been published in ZAUM magazine. A true “Valley Girl,” Sophie spends her free time ordering complicated Starbucks drinks, buying ridiculous earrings, and creatively incorporating “like” into her vernacular.