the short burst of warmth in late april succeeded in seducing the fruits into life. green swellings fattened as they sucked their life from the parent branches and, as merciless fledglings, elbowed their scrawny siblings to the ground.
this year a crop seemed likely. previous autumns' progeny had clung on, teasing with the promise of bounty to come, only to abort as the year progressed to be replaced by late season offerings which snuck to ripeness as the year's shutters came down.
perhaps their scarcity made them so desirable. they didn't taste particularly good. or bad. or really of anything. their colour and softness testified to their edibility, so they must have been ripe.
it was really more what they stood for. they were the exotic in a cold land. they told a tale of bedouin and pyramids, sand and armies, life and oblivion. they were a direct route to poetry and romance, to the world of solomen ibn daoud and the butterfly that stamped and as such they were priceless.
