Temporal Strawberries

I'd met her in the park the Sunday before the Monday when it happened. She was curled up on the grass by the big oak tree, our big oak tree, in its shade. I sat down beside her and breathed in the summer air and contemplated things. She didn't move. This was how our meetings always began. She would be there already, I would join her. She knew I was there. We'd sit quiet for a little while. That might seem strange to you but it worked for us. Everyone is in such a rush to say something, anything, that most of the time people's conversation is just vacuous bluster. Not for us. That pressure to talktalktalk just wasn't there for her and me. The contrast was nice, some relief from the usual pace and falseness of the world. There are other methods of communication, in any case.

When it felt right I said to her "It's like you asked. No one knows that either of us are here, I didn't tell anyone."

Her eyes fluttered open and she squinted and blinked in the summer's day light. Mentally, I swooned. She inched forward to rest her head on my lap and said "Thank you" quietly. I bent down and kissed her gently on the cheek. An uninterrupted summer's day with Amber... It was one of those days where life surreptitiously slips you everything you could ever want and it might just as easily fly past without you ever noticing.

I've never been able to just sit by our oak tree, so with a wonderful inevitability I sprang up, knocking the delicacy of the moment, and began to climb. She spluttered laughter and disapproval and stared at me, incredulous from the grass. I grinned down at her.

"But Amber! All joy and beauty is necessarily fleeting! You're an artist, you should know that. Besides, I brought you some strawberries, so you've got to forgive me."

I took out the little box of strawberries from my backpack and watched her eyes light up. So beautiful. I threw one down and it landed on her and matched the red of her dress. Straight away she started eating it and got to her feet and stared up, a cute caricature of defiance. "That's a silly romantic fallacy, darling". She smiled, and started to climb after me.

On Monday it happened.

The Tuesday after the Monday when it happened I went back to the park at dusk. We all did. I got in the branches and threw strawberries down at the ground for hours, slowly decreasing in regularity until my last one was gone. No one asked me why. The birds made a mess of them, of course.