Friday 12 June 2015

strawberry. a reaching

Strawberry season. I try to get my teeth to cut in and meet just below the stalk, so none will be wasted. The taste is so refreshing, so full of cool water and sugar. Always cool in the middle. The spectrum of red in the flesh is sweet to the eye. Eye candy. And the flavor hits so many spots on the tongue. I can't take it! Now look closely and touch the surface of the berry. The seeds are spaced quite evenly apart, yet one is lucky to draw a straight line through them. Run your finger slowly across with your eyes closed, and you will feel how they protrude from the flesh. The forensics told the tale, and the strawberry was there at the crime scene. The imprint matched a particular berry patch in Solano County. Some berries had gone missing, a farmer testified, and they were known to run wild! i was invited to investigate this case. i took a cross section of the strawberry. i was supposed to use an exacto knife, but (please keep my confidence) i used my front teeth to slice through the tender berry sample they gave me. so delicious! then i examined the cross section as indicated. amazing what i found! all the seeds you see patterning the outer reaches of the berry, pressing out from the corps, are actually attached to white tendrils which connect to the heart of the berry. in its evolution, the strawberry has literally shot its seeds out from the center! and around the clear paths, the white tails and trails, the transparent flesh has formed, and calcified in the center. the strawberry looks to be full of a network of straws! the straws end at the reach of the seed. the strawberry, i determined, is not a berry at all! it is a reaching! a striving! toward destiny!

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