[Firefly] "A Taste of Summer" (G)
Author's Note: Written for comment_fic's Firefly, Kaylee, strawberries . This prompt made me think of my first summer job ever, at age seventeen: weighing pints of strawberries and collecting the money for them at a Pick-Your-Own Strawberries field owned by the farm my dad worked for
The Shepherd seemed a nice enough feller, prepared to pay his passage as best he could: didn't carry much cash, but he made up for it by bartering some goods he'd brung. Even Mal, tough ol' buzzard that he pretended to be, couldn't pass up what Book had in his kit: fresh veggies and fruits brung from the monastery gardens.
That included a pint of ripe, red strawberries, bright as the rubies Kaylee had once seen in a shop window, one of the times her daddy had brought her to the Core planets. But all the purty stones on all the Core worlds weren't worth half so much as one ripe strawberry, when you was used to eating plain ol' protein made to look like home-grown food.
She snuck a berry or two into a cigar box she kept in her bunk, saving them for later, but not too later: she knew from growin' strawberry plants in cans on the porch back at home that you had to have 'em quick, else they turned all dark and mushy if they didn't take to mold.
Once she got a moment alone, she helped herself to the fruit, lookin' it over first, holding it by the dry green hull on top, admiring the red flesh and the weensy little seeds all golden-green as they should be. She sniffed it, smelling the sweet flesh and a hint of dry soil, smelling memories of a dozen summers all at once: the sun warm on the dusty earth of her daddy's farm, breezes that smelled of crops ripening, Momma watering the plants in the kitchen garden from a battered old tin watering can, her younger brothers trying to snitch the fruit before it was ready and getting their mouths all shriveled up for it.
Only then did she let herself take a bite, rolling the juicy flesh and the crunchy seeds over her tongue. Bliss, utter bliss and more memories, of strawberry pies and cobblers, or just plain strawberries et straight up like this.
The Shepherd seemed a nice enough feller, prepared to pay his passage as best he could: didn't carry much cash, but he made up for it by bartering some goods he'd brung. Even Mal, tough ol' buzzard that he pretended to be, couldn't pass up what Book had in his kit: fresh veggies and fruits brung from the monastery gardens.
That included a pint of ripe, red strawberries, bright as the rubies Kaylee had once seen in a shop window, one of the times her daddy had brought her to the Core planets. But all the purty stones on all the Core worlds weren't worth half so much as one ripe strawberry, when you was used to eating plain ol' protein made to look like home-grown food.
She snuck a berry or two into a cigar box she kept in her bunk, saving them for later, but not too later: she knew from growin' strawberry plants in cans on the porch back at home that you had to have 'em quick, else they turned all dark and mushy if they didn't take to mold.
Once she got a moment alone, she helped herself to the fruit, lookin' it over first, holding it by the dry green hull on top, admiring the red flesh and the weensy little seeds all golden-green as they should be. She sniffed it, smelling the sweet flesh and a hint of dry soil, smelling memories of a dozen summers all at once: the sun warm on the dusty earth of her daddy's farm, breezes that smelled of crops ripening, Momma watering the plants in the kitchen garden from a battered old tin watering can, her younger brothers trying to snitch the fruit before it was ready and getting their mouths all shriveled up for it.
Only then did she let herself take a bite, rolling the juicy flesh and the crunchy seeds over her tongue. Bliss, utter bliss and more memories, of strawberry pies and cobblers, or just plain strawberries et straight up like this.