თბილისი, 2024
“The fruit,” his father said, “is not the curse. The curse is thinking you must eat it alone.” the fruit of grisaia qartulad
“It’s a place,” he lied. “A garden where everything grows wrong.” A gentle one
Year two: his sister, Nino, started seeing the boy from the hills. A gentle one. Until he wasn’t. Until Lasha came home to find her staring at a wall, her hands folded like broken wings. Lasha looked at her hands
Lasha looked at her hands. No rings. No calluses from fighting. Just the soft palms of someone who hadn’t yet bitten the fruit.
She sat beside him. “Then why stay in the garden?”
In the print shop’s back room, Lasha kept a single photograph: Mihail, his brother, in military uniform. Killed in Abkhazia '93. Not by a bullet. By a landmine made in a factory that no longer exists. The fruit passed down: father’s blood, sister’s silence, brother’s scattered bones.