This piece has just been published by Flash Frontier in New Zealand.

Adam lived in a weatherboard cottage, surrounded by his apple orchard.

Sales of his annual apple crop were declining due to the perfect storm of the market’s demand for certified organic versus the demands of their Japanese customers for unblemished perfection. As Adam’s hitherto simple life began to unravel, his nights became increasingly apocalyptic.

His nightmares always began with a tympanic pelting storm besieging his eardrums akin to being duct-taped to AC-DC’s concert amps, punctuated by thunderclaps of Biblical proportions and the sound effects of Cyclone Gabrielle.

The overflowing water flooding into his brain began to short out his synapses and sizzling spark-fests criss-crossed his lobes in a chain lightning reaction.

The ventricles of his heart began to sport stalactites, transported via the ice in his veins, and driven by the Antarctic blizzard invading his gasping mouth.

He loved God but now saw him as a sadist.

Then, miraculously, a new day dawned in his head and the Sun came out, heralding the arrival of Eve, carrying a backpack, and asking if he had any work available. Adam was immediately smitten and invented a job on the spot, with no idea how he was going to pay her.

He needn’t have worried because Eve immediately took stock of the situation and re-positioned the business as ‘Hissy Fit Cider – The Asp-irational Drink’ and she appeared on the label, picking apples, naked.

Now Adam welcomed the cyclone of orders that kept him up all night.