The thing is, I don’t know why I like blueberries and nobody else does. Maybe the others dislike blueberries because, now, even the softest, darkest colored ones are bitter to taste. The skin is coated in white wax that is difficult to scrub off the berry’s thin skin. The wax has a purpose though: To preserve the little love my blueberries have left to offer so late into the season (an ideal). Every couple of days I find myself buying another pint of them. I like to toss the empty container in the backseat after eating them on the drive home and I like to do it all over again whenever I miss their sour sting on my tongue.
The first day of summer was marked by the abundant presence of the dark berries on grocery store shelves. Most of the time it was easy to tell that the berries loved me back as much as I did them. At the beginning of the summer I liked to take them home to clean them and inspect each one in the basket carefully before letting them surprise me with bitter or sweet. I ate the berries in secret silence at the beginning of the season. I packed them in my lunches and put bunches in my pockets before leaving the house. The firm berries held their shape well no matter what stress they were under. I could tell they loved me easily. On any given day every berry but about three were sickeningly sweet.
As the summer went on, the berries began to lose their shape. Some in my pint basket were too small and would fall out along the way from the market to my car before being taken home. Berries that would not let me love them rolled away or were found rotted, all without saying goodbye. I still cherished buying more every couple of days. I took them home as usual and washed them carefully and inspected them before placing them into my special glass bowl I bought just for them. The bowl was very plain and lined with fresh paper towels so as to not take away from the specialness of the blueberries. I hid the bowl in the back of the fridge so nobody could take them away from me. They were still my secret and I loved them even though they lost their shape and leaked purple fluid into my pockets when I tried to take them on adventures with me.
One day, as usual, I ate all my berries in a matter of hours and in my newly gluttonous way, bought two pints in a day. My tongue was already stained a light green-blue; the color had been a deep blue at the beginning of the summer and I liked the evidence of enjoyment the berries left behind. The second pint I bought I did not bother washing or inspecting carefully. I ate them on the way home; the drive was long and I was tired of being so careful about the way I consumed my favorite treat.
In the middle of the night I woke up sick. I could not swallow without feeling a scraping, sour taste drag slowly down the rawness of my untouched throat. In the kitchen refrigerator I rummaged quietly for berries. I had not taken my special glass bowl out of the refrigerator yet. I prayed something was left to soothe my aching head. I did not have to look far, I had just been reaching in the wrong places. My bowl with a few softened berries in it had been moved into plain sight. With the bowl visible I worried anyone could steal from it. I assumed someone would. I did not care. I pried what was left off of the stained paper towel which lined the bottom of my bowl and allowed the berries to pass my cracking lips so they could touch the soft middle of my tongue. The berries did not need to be chewed thoroughly, they melted into the crevices of my feverish throat, slimily sticking to places they should not have.
Back in my room I placed the last two on my bedside table and fell asleep. I woke up gently holding the last one. I rolled it around in my hand before tasting. It was salty from the sweat which had seeped from my palms as I slept. I stayed two weeks sick in bed, no berries were to be had. When my throat became a more tolerable addition to my pale, tired body, I dragged myself to the car so I could drive to buy more berries. To my disappointment, in the two weeks that I had wasted in bed, pints had become difficult to find. I quietly asked the one I held carefully in my hands to be kind to me this time. I ate them carelessly on the drive home. I acted as if nothing had happened; I can’t think about it too hard, hedonism disgusts me.
The summer has ended and I buy blueberries still, knowing the way I am looked at when I am seen holding a pint carefully in my hands. I don’t mind defending my choice of a treat. They are not loving like they were at the start of the summer but they are familiar and that familiarity I’ve found difficult to release with ease. Blueberries are all I can eat. They surprise me. (i am afraid). I bite into them carefully, telling myself I do not know what to expect when, in fact, I do. I know the berries will be cold on my upper teeth, that the seeds will get stuck in the crevices of my throat where my tonsils stay inflamed after mid-summer, and I am sure that their deceptive looks will forcefully burn sour on the delicate pink of my healed tongue.
