The Latin for apple is malus

Today I had the best apple, light green in color and smooth to the touch. Its unblemished surface spoke to an upbringing free of predators and disease, while a single mark -- a bright red splash the size and shape of a quarter -- dated it as on the cusp of maturity.

It fit perfectly within my hand, not too large like the genetic mutants that go by the name Red Delicious, nor too small like the runts that fall off the tree before their time and get gathered up in five-pound bags. It fit so perfectly in fact that for a moment I pondered whether fate, evolution, or something else entirely was responsible.

I'd picked this specimen up a few days ago, out of a wooden crate full of others. A sign taped to the crate's side indicated that they were from Michigan; the cost seemed fair. I'd wandered up and down the aisles of the market, and nothing had caught my eye. Until now. I bagged this one along with three others, paid, and left.

In the days since, I'd had the other ones. They were perfectly adequate and did the trick when I was hungry. But now, down to the last one -- this one -- I saw details I'd missed in the others. Perhaps because I now saw it apart from the others, perhaps because it really was different from the others -- whatever the case, before I even took a bite, it seemed to me perfect.

When I finally did take a bite, I was not disappointed.