On her way back home, she made a small detour to the open farmers’ market to buy some potted mums. She had seen them earlier, perched on the counter in the laboratory, and they looked so warm, so quietly comforting. Their pink matched the highlighter color the nurse used to mark parts of her lab results—the things the doctor should pay attention to. Without looking at the numbers, she had grabbed the pile of papers, aligned them neatly, slipped them into a folder, and zipped her bag.

It was almost the end of the year. Decembers used to be colder but somehow prettier. Wrapped in the whiteness of snow, everything felt serene and clean. Now it was just cold and grey. The Christmas decorations did their best to cheer up the gloominess of the season.

It was mid-afternoon, midweek, so it was not too crowded. She loved open markets, always brimming with colors. Not as vivid as in summer, perhaps, but the string lights cast a soft, honeyed glow over heaps of oranges and lemons. She made her way straight to the flower stalls and, as expected, found a stand selling mums. The selection was modest, not particularly striking. It was past their peak season, with only a few pots left, nothing like the abundant display in autumn when they were in their prime, but it didn’t matter. Anything would do.

Without hesitation, she reached for the only pot of yellow mums.

 “This is the last yellow I have for this season. They are like little suns, aren’t they?” the cheerful chubby lady said with a smile as she wiped her hands on a dark green apron with soil stains here and there.

She nodded. Normally she enjoyed a bit of bargaining, but today she simply paid without even asking the price first.

The florist wrapped the pot in kraft paper and was about to hand it over when she remembered something.

”Just a moment.”

She set the pot back on the worn wooden table and disappeared beneath. When she emerged back, she held a roll of bright yellow ribbon and a pair of oversized scissors. With quick movements, she cut a generous length, circled it twice around the pot, and tied it into a full, lovely bow.

“Now it’s ready. If you keep them inside, place them near a window. They love light. Not too warm, though. And don’t overwater them. Just enough to keep the soil slightly moist. They won’t last forever indoors, you know… so enjoy them while they do.”

“Thank you. Have a nice day.”

She cradled the pot against her chest and headed toward the exit closest to her bus stop. It was only a few stops away, but a sudden heaviness settled into her limbs, and  she gave up on the idea of walking home.

Weaving through narrow lanes and low murmurs, she moved quickly, careful not to brush against anyone, when a tall, thin figure in a dark purple coat stepped into her path. A black beret sat over short silver hair.

The figure turned.

When she looked up, she was confronted by an old man’s wrinkled but neatly shaved face. His piercing black eyes were shadowed by thick brows, from which a few long white hairs protruded, almost stubbornly.

“Oh, pardon me,” he said, his voice deep and hoarse.

She kept her gaze on him for a moment, unsure whether he was a shopper or a vendor.

“It’s alright,” she muttered, her eyes drifting over the fine texture of his clearly custom-tailored coat. As she followed the line of his sleeve, she noticed a small pile of brownish fruit beside him.

At first, unremarkable. At second glance, recognition.

Medlar.

She hadn’t seen them in years.

The memory came instantly. Saturday afternoons at her grandfather’s summer house. The two of them gathering medlars from two trees he had planted there years back, placing them carefully into pale wooden crates he had made himself just for that purpose. Later, they would sit on the doorstep, arranging the fruit, tucking hay gently between them. Only a few would be ready to eat.

They shared them, but she always got more. And he always let her win the seed-spitting contest, pretending he didn’t quite know how, although he taught her that.

She could still taste those Saturdays.

“Medlar?!” she exclaimed, a sudden brightness in her voice.

“There’s not much left,” the old man said. “I was just about to leave.”

“I’ll take them all, please. I haven’t had them in years… not since my grandfather used to pick them for me.”

“Then they were waiting for you.”

He began to pack them slowly into a paper bag.

She reached for her wallet, but his thin hand stopped her.

“No. This is my gift to you today. I think you need it. Please accept it.”

There was something in his gaze that allowed no refusal. He placed the bag handles into her hand, folded her fingers over them, and gave a small, firm tap.

Her eyes welled, and she just bowed her head slightly.

The bus was, fortunately, half empty. When she sat down, with the mums in one arm and the medlars in the other, she hugged them close.

Through the streaks of water sliding down the window, she noticed how quickly darkness was settling.

“So early,” she said softly.

The warmth washed over her as she entered the flat. As she took off her coat, still heavy with cold, and managed to pull off her boots, she felt a little lighter. After wiggling her frozen toes, she put on the woolen slippers and headed to the kitchen.

There was a tall table beside the window, with two bar chairs. The bright green mug was still there, with a trace of morning coffee at the bottom.

“This will be a good spot for you. You will have enough light,” she said to the mums.

The grey folder she pulled from her bag was ice-cold. It didn’t look appealing on the table. From the cabinet, she took out a vintage porcelain bowl with a faint floral border and a worn line of gold along the rim, and started to gently place medlars in it.

”You’re funny ones. I never thought you looked ridiculous. To me you looked like weird flowers, not a dog’s ass. Maybe because I was too young and innocent. People are just mean sometimes.”

The bowl was full. She was digging through the cutlery drawer determined to find one of her favourite teaspoons. A small, old-fashioned one, not belonging to any set anymore, clearly once part of something larger. A faint ornamental pattern on the handle was dulled by years of handling. Not damaged, just worn enough to lose its sharpness. It felt lighter than expected, as if it had already given most of itself away. Many years ago, she found it sitting lonely in a box at a flea market, separated from the rest without explanation. Since then, she used it only for special treats, as if she was paying her respect to its years of service.

She settled into one of the chairs. Medlars were soft to touch, slightly wrinkled, ready. She took one from the top.

“I like that you’re not polite—neither in looks nor in availability. You make people wait for you. And then you reward patience with a unique sweetness when all other fruits are long gone.”

She gently pulled it apart with fingers, and with a papery sigh, it spilled a pulp the color of wet earth and seeds.

The first scoop released a soft, slightly muted scent. It smelled of quiet things. It didn’t rise; it waited. It was not bright and fruity, but deeper, like it carried the weight of a cellar—somewhere between overripe apple, gently fermented, with a sweet, leathery hint of dried date and something old wine-like beneath it, all of it blurred into a faint warmth. It tasted of time, a flavor that had finished its argument with the world and settled into a dark peace.

The bite struck like an arrow to the chest. A shock, then a heatwave.

For a moment, she was little again, and someone was there to take care of everything. She could almost feel the grandpa’s big hands on her shoulders, and sunshine on her eyelashes.

A seed. Was she still good at spitting them? She aimed for the coffee mug.

“Bucket! Let’s gooo!” She cheered like it was a finals match.

She kept eating one medlar after another, slowly, enjoying each bite, shooting seeds.

After many days, she felt happy.

She missed the cup and the seed fell on the folder. The smile vanished, as if the grey of the folder had risen into her face.

Both her mom and her fraternal grandmother had cancer. She knew she had an enemy lurking from both family sides. Her doctor’s insistence on including tumor markers in the lab tests had been futile. She didn’t want to know. Everything else was fine to do, but not that. The rest was already more than enough.

A medlar must go through bletting before it becomes sweet. Maybe it’s the same with her. She spent so much time complaining about everything, everyone. Always sticking rigidly to rules invented by others. She was like an unripe medlar, astringent and unpleasant. Maybe it wasn’t only inheritance. Maybe it had something to do with her, too. Maybe something in the way she lived—choice by choice—had been slowly leading her here.

She looked at the sunny heads of mums, so bright against the dark window reflection.

“You will not last long… Now you’re beautiful, but once the days are counted, each step further is irreversibly ugly. Maybe a medlar is not as pretty, but it’s sweetest when it’s decaying.”

She decided she would not open the folder. She would let the doctor do it first.