Imagine an apple.

A golden-brown apple, dappled with red. Its skin is paper-thin, its flesh yeilding and sweet. The texture smooth, not sandy. Not a single trace of tough, bitter rind.

You've eaten an apple like this before, and every apple you've eaten since has been a juicy prayer for another. Or, perhaps you have not. In that case, you wouldn't understand why the fruit of Eden is so oft represented by this tantalizing fruit. It is a symbol of hunger. It is temptation.

There is a certain kind of day, late in the autumn when all the leaves have turned to purple and red and gold, that is not very different from that apple. Days when the sky is blue and gray, like water rolling blue over steel. Fields of brown grass burn gold in the sunlight. The north wind pricks your skin, and reminds you of how alive you are.

On a day like that, well. It's not hard to see what she saw in the apple.