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Ling 1
Tiffany Ling
Mr. Pacelli
American Lit. Experience
June 3, 2021
The Red
Ouchgoddangit. I flinched from the sudden prick, subsequently wincing in pain whilst the
red trickled down from my fingertip, to the palm of my hand, to my wrist, all the way down to
my forearm. Something about the gravitational pull of the earth? I stood in front of my abuser in
shock, almost as if I had been momentarily electrocuted. The red that hung from the arched
branches taunted me, as if it were begging me to make another feeble attempt at reaching for it
again. I fixated my eyes onto my stained hands and reiterated to myself what I long knew. My
fingers did not stand a chance against the fruit tenaciously dangling from the arches. They had
thorns to protect them. What a shame humans didn’t evolve to have built in gloves.
“You ok Tiff?” Almost as if they had both been born with a sixth sense, my parents
rushed towards me. Both a blessing and a curse that children without siblings received all the
attention of their doting parents. By now, the red coating my hands had been overcome by
gravity and fell in droplets onto the leafy ground in a steady beat. Considering the plausibility of
my parents being superhumans, I deduced that the metallic smell of the red was infectious to the
humid summer air.
The red aside, my parents and I fit perfectly into the scene, just like the final piece of a
puzzle. A town like Wilton Connecticut was a small town in which loitering pedestrians only
added to the idyllic, small town charm. My parents stood beside me and I was surrounded. Not
only by my mother and father but by the shrill sound of bird calls, by the hot summer air, by the
Ling 2
metallic taste on my tongue, and by all of nature and green as far as the eye could see. Despite
being surrounded, I was comforted by the familiarity of the place as my family and I frequented
the trail during our family walks. A stinging sensation coming from my finger breached my
bubble of comfort, and I sharply inhaled. A reminder from the red that our conflict was not soon
to be over.
The red continued to glare at me from the comfort of their branch. These wineberries
hung from the branches similar to ornaments hanging from a Christmas tree, and their bright red
hue was telling of the freshness and flavor, especially when they graced a bowl of vanilla ice
cream. There was much more to wineberries that met the eye, and for me especially, part of their
magic was a result of their stubborn growing season. Of the fifty-two weeks in a year,
wineberries were only able to be picked for roughly two measly weeks. I could see my parents’
baskets nearby, practically overflowing with wineberries, and the volume of the red in my pail
was a stark contrast. But their baskets weren’t the only thing I could recount in remarkable detail.
My mother’s hands were littered with small cuts and bruises. They spoke her truth, and revealed
what she had endured for the red. It did not take a detective nor a medical examiner to determine
there had been trauma. Next, my eyes darted towards the hands of my father and he too, had
similar markings on his hands. I could only imagine how their experience with the red had
shaped them. Maybe a long time ago, they had the red streaming down their hands like mine
were in that moment. In the moments walking back to the car, and many moments after, I was
thankful this year’s was a fruitful harvest, but not without the red.