This morning, I woke up at 10:00 and decided I did not want to while away the time between now and my shift indoors. So, without showering, I threw on a pair of shorts, took my backpack, donned my "eM etaH" cap (mirrored) to suit my mood, and took off on Serenity into the overcast morning.

As usual, I headed west, toward the more central parts of town, but took a slightly different route. But no matter. All roads lead to 70th and O anyway. A cool rain fell for a while, which felt good.

Again, I wasn't particularly hungry, but just for fun, I decided to engage in an old pastime, and attempted a little dumpster diving. I turned up empty, but I wasn't really trying that hard anyway. The gods rightly denied me, as I was not driven by anything even resembling true need.

So I wandered around randomly for a while until I became temporarily disoriented, and stopped to semi-meditate on a raised surface next to the sidewalk. I looked around and realized that lo and behold, I was back at the intersection of 70th and O, but from a different vantage point. I remained there for a while until the time seemed right to continue.

Back eastward again. Now I was riding on the trail on the outskirts of town, east of 84th.

I noticed some red berries growing on bushes next to the trail, and decided to try one. I have long been conditioned against ingesting unknown plants found in the wild, as some of them might potentially be poisonious. To hell with that. I have since come to the realization that the chance of randomly picking up a lethal dose of anything from most common wild plants in most areas is very slim. Sickness maybe, but not death.

The berry was bitter, as I suspected it might be. But this little experiment had alerted me to the exsistence of such plants along the trail, so my eyes were now more open to what I would see next.

A different type of berry on another bush. These I recognized as closely resembling raspberries (of which I picked many in the mountains during my younger years), though perhaps not the exact same species. Some of them were darker in color. Also, the stems had thorns. I picked one, and found it semi-sweet. The darker (ripe) ones were easiest to pick, so I took several and ate them. Yummy.

I was somewhat surprised that on such an obviously public trail, the bushes weren't already picked clean, but there was no evidence that anybody else had taken any at all.

After a couple minutes of eating, I got the sense that I had taken enough. It was time to move on. Animals in the trees were scampering around, the birds were fluttering. I mounted my steed, and proceeded. Sure enough, a few seconds into my ride, I met a couple of people biking the other way. And I could also see one in the distance behind me.

A minute later, when I finally realized what was on the ground that I had just ridden over, I was compelled to stop regardless of who else might be around. Strewn everywhere across the trail, laid big, thick, plump dark berries. They had fallen from tree branches far above. The fact that most of them were not yet trampled suggested that they must have fallen very recently.

As I was looking around, a couple of my fellow humans glided up the trail. Instinct told me these were not friends. They rode on past. Just before they were out of earshot, I heard a snippet of their conversation. "What was that guy doing?"

"Probably looking for something to..." Faded out of distinguishable word range. Then a couple of laughs, the tone of which sounded somewhat mocking. It wouldn't have been hard to tell what I was doing or considering, yet somehow, they considered my actions shameful, and in this society, I don't think they would be alone in their sentiments. Maybe these are the people who give America such an unfortunate reputation in the world.

(I remembered the words of Zack De La Rocha from Memory of the Dead...

And with the ghost of Nixon present in their eyes,
they smiled.
and pronounced the omnipitence
of the free market
...
the freedom for indians to buy corn that once flourished overgrown in their backyards

That last line has always stuck with me. "The freedom to buy corn that once flourished overgrown in their backyards." Now, back to today's story.)

I stooped, picked one up, and put it in my mouth. It was sweetier and juicer than any of my previous samplings. And there were thousands of them. I ate some more, and found that the easiest way to get some without sand was to take them from slightly off the edge of the trail, where there was underbrush to separate them from the dirt. As I walked around, I couldn't help but step on the delicious things wherever I went.

After eating to the point of satiation, I took the bags of peanuts and seeds from my backpack, consolidated their contents into one, and started to put berries into the newly empty bag. I had the thought that I would save some for later, and perhaps share some with my friends at the Mideastern Base*. (I wasn't certain they would be interested in eating them given their origins, but it wouldn't hurt to offer.)

[*Since the place where I am currently residing has, to my knowledge, no pre-existing official title, I have decided to designate it as the Mideastern Base. The word "Base" just seems fitting for multiple reasons. For a while, I was thinking it might be the "Lincoln Base", or the "Midwestern Base". But I didn't really like either of these. But "Mideastern Base" is perfect, both because this town is a fair distance east of my homeland, and because the house is on the eastern side of Lincoln. Plus, the term mideastern has the advantage of confusing the uninitiated into thinking I might be talking about Afghanistan or something. Mideastern Base it is. Let's hope this doesn't raise keyword flags at the Department of Homeland Security.]

As I filled my bag, I noticed a few other people go by without saying anything. I stopped caring what they thought. It was obvious that if these berries were left on the ground, they would soon be mashed into the earth uneaten, and nobody else seemed to want them, so I kept picking them up until I got tired of it, and decided to head back to the Base.

When I arrived, I didn't see Yanthor and Anya anywhere in sight, though their vehicles were present, so they're probably around somewhere. I wandered down to my quarters, and made ready to document this little adventure. I some of the berries out of the bag, and realized that some of them had already started to go past ripe. Still yummy though.

Now I've finished most of them. I didn't pick up that many, and if left here, they won't be good later.

A couple of thoughts after witnessing this bounty:

• Maybe now, I understand just a tiny bit better the joys experienced by our ancestors, and what caused them to hold celebrations for events such as the solstice (which passed us around a week ago) which groups such as Wiccans now attempt to reconstruct. The bounty and generosity of the earth, coming in turns and cycles, is something to get excited about and celebrate!
• I am going to momentarily disagree with the assertion by the character in Ran's unfinished masterpiece who stated (possibly within a dream, hallucination, or other state of consciousness) that the Earth as a lifeform died a few decades ago, and those of us who are left amount to the equivilant of bacteria on a decomposing corpse. Maybe we are, but what I witnessed today suggests otherwise. Though perhaps it is somewhat diminished from what it once was (but how would we ever really know?), Life abounds. There is hope for the friends of Ishmael.

Now I'm going to get ready to go on duty.