My sister friend, Margaret, invited me over to pick ripe figs from her fig tree on an unusually humid and hot afternoon in Long Beach. The tree was located in the far corner of Margaret's backyard. We approached her carefully with an empty basket lined with soft fabric. Some leaves were wild and untamed while others dripped with seeds and red pulp. The fig tree stretched out her wooden limbs and clapped her leaves like a Flamenco dancer with castanets. We accepted her fruit offering. Margaret then nestled a ladder within the leaves and limbs of the tree. I placed my foot firmly on the bottom wrung to brace and secure it.
Margaret climbed up the ladder and gently pulled the figs from its branches. She carefully handed each fig to me to place in the basket. "Handle them with care, because they bruise easily" she said. The fig tree trusted us with her fruit and wanted us to partake in its delicacy. Some of the green and purplish bulbs dangled on her limbs dripping with syrup, while others were half eaten by birds, pecked and hollowed. After we harvested a satisfactory amount of figs, we took our cache into Margaret's kitchen.
Margaret and I symmetrically sliced the pear shaped fruit on cutting boards and left traces of syrup and flesh on the stainless steel teeth of the knives. Later we were joined by our friend Lethia, who joined Margaret and I in eating the halves. The inside was sweet to the palate and the outer layer was soft like young coconut meat. After we finished, I went back outside to thank the fig tree for her gifts, but she interrupted and whispered, "My fruit should have been forbidden, it should have caused the fall of man, not some mere boring apple, for my fruit is far more seductive and aesthetic" I nodded my head in agreement and verbally affirmed her prowess.