From the Camera's Angle: A Man's Apple

A man in a bowler hat and no face stands on a cliff with a green apple in his right hand and a pocket knife in his left. It is a Swiss Army Knife. He stands facing away from the precipice with his head tilted slightly up. He'd be looking up if he had eyes.

We begin to focus on the green apple, taking note of its indentations. Dark spots scatter themselves, most of them near the stem. It looks as if the man may have been pressing his fingers there. The dark spots look soft but we can't really tell. We would continue to characterize this apple more but it's moving now, distracting us. The man is rolling the apple in his hands expertly - as if he's done this many times before. He spins it slowly and drops his hand. The apple falls through the air for a split second. The man grabs the top of the stem and the apple continues spinning, its momentum twisting it. The stem is about to break. And it does. The apple flies through the air again.

And this is where the knife comes in. It punctures the apple from the top. The blade is dull so the apple barely holds on.Our focus remains on the apple and the knife. And the finger of the no-face man creeping down the exposed blade. He presses down on it. It requires a great deal of pressure but he manages to prick himself. The finger winces and retracts out of instinct, but it manages to correct itself in mid-movement. The finger reaches towards the apple. It presses down on the green skin. Lightly. Just enough to leave a crimson fingerprint.

A quick cut occurs now. Like in a movie or TV show. We've switched from being literally inches from the apple, the blade, and the finger to now looking 20 feet away from the man. We are behind him and slightly to his left. His left arm is diagonal, probably from the cutting motion of the pocket knife. We look down and realize we're not standing on anything. The man is facing away from the cliff and we're behind him. This means we're not standing on anything. It's a cartoon: the moment you notice the danger you're in, the moment that danger occurs. We fall and we grasp at nothing. The man waves with his right hand. He never looks back. Our focus moves quickly as we plummet. The precipice grows smaller, the blue ocean more encompassing. That man. Did he really not have a face?