Pineapple tattoo on upper back

The pineapple came up the valley road on Tuesday in a cart with a broken wheel, wrapped in wet sacking as if it were a relic. Captain Duffy had it from a merchant in Bristol who had it from Barbados, and he would not let Father Prior touch it until he had explained, twice, how many shillings the fruit had cost him. We have never seen one. Brother Oswin says it is a pine cone that forgot it was a tree, and Brother Tobias says it is a lantern, and I think he is nearer, for the crown of leaves stands up like a flame.

We were to eat it at the feast of Saint Brendan. Instead the prior ordered it set on the refectory table, where it sat all week and filled the hall with a smell like a warm orchard. I was given the task of keeping the wasps off it, so I sat at the table with a rag and came to know its skin better than my own hands. Every scale is a little diamond, raised at the edges, and they turn in spirals, one way and then the other, like beads counted on the knuckle. There are always thirteen in a row and twenty-one the other way. I could not tell you why, though I suspect God has his reasons.

On Saturday the cook cut it open. Its flesh was gold as a candle, and the juice ran down the table to the very place where I had sat. Brother Oswin wept, which surprised us all. I did not weep. I took the crown, which had dried on the sill, and wrapped it in linen and put it in my satchel, so that when you visit in spring you may see what a fruit looks like after a whole monastery has watched over it.

Your brother in Christ, Matthias