The strawberry plant had continued to grow after fires, floods & trampling of time, never relinquishing their sweet spot as the happiest tasting, brightest berry.

            A house was built with local logs, strawberry plant gutted & offshoots torn up.  

            The house was happy & the strawberries had enough deep-rooted micellar connectivity to sleep in the deep dark of winter as one patch of pending fruitfulness.  

            Warmth awakened & the strawberries blossomed.  Delicate white petals grew, translucent & darling like linen baby bonnets on Easter.  Then cute green puckered nubs sprouted, which suckled sun until plump, rosy, & idyllic – the irresistible, deep red berries studded with crisp white seeds.  

Birds, deer, & all manner beast found spring’s delight on the strawberries, the house now a haven, drawing comfort to the Husband & Wife occupants, who never had to hunt too far & always worked to give more.

            They arranged the strawberry offshoots outward to fill more space, lifelines reaching further afield, multitudes of healthy tendril-like runners rooted like sectional umbilical cords; the next year an entire nursery of white berry blossoms appeared.  

Husband & Wife held hands & made jams & stayed sweet all winter.  

Bees fluttered from flower to flower, mixing pollen, every plant ready to receive & make more & the world buzzed with dancing breezes that sounded alive & breathing.  The strawberry field was happy to provide as bears shared the lush territory, & many murders of crows shit the seeds across the miles, spreading & expanding the exquisite taste of every element cultivated in exact proportion.  

            It’s not in strawberries’ nature to settle:  they spread over the mountain & down the river bends, creating vegetative tributaries.  The strawberry plant’s saw-toothed triple leaflets on slender stalks reached up, air circulating the soil with room for rain, beautifully balanced botany.

            Husband & Wife made jam & ate berries & shared sustenance with bunnies.  

            Soft warmth of not-quite-summer lingered as the strawberries decided to break the balance to remain in time to maintain the continuous comfort eternal enough.

            So, the strawberries stayed & so did spring.  And the Husband & Wife remained sweet & content, the berries remained flawless crimson & never bug-bitten. Strawberries stopped growing from flower, just arrived in silence, consuming but not expanding from experience of days, droughts, or temperature drops – appearing with the likeness of perfect, but without the benefit of the sensational tastes of daily, victorious, survival.

            Husband & Wife maintained comfortable cottage bliss, but evolution is most constant in nature, so the strawberries wanted more, because while aware that they’re adored & eternal, strawberries next wanted to be the ONLY.

            Rather than share the exalted community, the strawberries pulled in all their fruit, withheld the very berry that glorified their existence.  The animals migrated away:  Husband followed far to hunt, wife left alone with countless jars of jam & dying, memories of fields bejeweled with bright berries fading fast into concentrated flavors of the past, preserves of the special time when peace was at a constant, juicy simmer.  

By Dena Merlino Scott, Halloween 2024