I had my first fig today. For all my life until now I'd known that figs might exist. Now I know for sure, figs do exist. They had attained a mythical and legendary status with me; everywhere I'd see a fig now and then. A passing reference in a fantasy novel mentioning figs in a feast of opulence, a bible passage dictating the rebellion of a fig tree against God or the Buddha meditating under a fig tree to attain enlightenment and escape the eternity of samsara. That's not even counting the innumerable references to figs found in translations of ancient Greek texts, as if the old bards' love of figs held some deeper meaning I was yet to decipher. The fig. A fig for you, a rude Shakespearean insult. I once almost saw a fig in some feminist video that had figs in it. It needed a figger warning. To fig. I don't give a fig. Fig is a nice word.
I knew with the internet at hand I could get a review of figs, their taste, textures and flavours all spelled out for me with a click and a tap. Yet some madness compelled me to not do so, to let my meeting with the fig happen without me ever making any conscious and deliberate step towards discovering it. There was some splendour in the knowledge that out there in the world were figs and some day I'd ratify their elevated glory with my taste buds; but I would not ruin the virgin taste of such a fruit with any knowledge that would clarify my speculations. At one point I searched my childhood memories to see if I had already accidentally seen a fig and my search was in vain, as I was searching for what was already found. I can now ratify that today was the first day I've ever witnessed the existence of figs firsthand, my childhood was mistaken. The fruit was not a fig. I never allowed others to tell me of what figs were, though in all my life even my friends who deliberately tried to ruin this endeavour in the name of glorious banter did not consider to describe figs. Even in all the references of figs I have seen not one person thought to describe figs, and I am all the more to profit for it. I would allow figs to find me and hold up to my dreams of it. Figs would find me as sure as death, and I was sure of it.
I gnawed the flesh from the fruit's overripe and tough skin to get at the flesh within. I was told that the normal way of eating them is with the skin but these ones were not as fresh as ones picked from an orchard the day today and so were more suited for this method of consumption. I expected an almond-looking fruit crossed with the hazel glow of an onion's outer skin with the taste and flesh of a peach. I found instead the insides that resembled warped pomegranates with an outer skin that resembled more the burgundy outer skin of the common onion, the overall shape and colour reminding me of a beetroot, albeit one that is stuffed with lentils and grapefruit. The taste was not strong, but distinctively unlike any other fruit I've tasted, with the closest analogue being the taste of a kiwi, or perhaps a watered-down and sweetened melon.
My journey for the fig by any standard is finally concluded. I am trying my best to be angry at the world but I am merely filled with contentedness and weary eyes longing for sleep. I have more figs for tomorrow. What a world it is to live in today; a world full of figs.
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Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O (Read 14408654 times)