Taste the Forbidden Fruit

This afternoon while hanging out some laundry I discovered that some of the nightshade berries had ripened. Black and dangerous, yet compelling. Something about them was drawing me closer. I picked a couple and held them in my hand. My roommate Wendy looked on horrified as I popped one into my mouth. I figured one little berry wouldn’t kill me. It probably wouldn’t even hurt me. I bet it’s like those reports on foods that give you cancer. Like broccoli will give you cancer. And then you read in the fine print that you need to eat thirty pounds of broccoli every day for twenty years in order to get cancer from it.

I expected black nightshade to taste terrible. Things that are poisonous are supposed to be bitter, or maybe have that burning taste. That’s how animals know that it’s bad for them, right? The berry was juicy, with little white seeds. If you’ve ever tried fresh figs, the consistency was very similar. And the taste? It was delicious! It even tasted a bit like fresh figs! And it wasn’t bitter at all.

I quickly had another one. Just as good as the first. I feel like I’ve stumbled upon some sort of berry conspiracy. Someone out there doesn’t want us to know that black nightshade is the bomb. Maybe it’s some sort of international consortium of fig farmers. If people found out that they could eat something fig-like for free just by picking wild berries that grow in their back yard, why would they ever want to pay a dollar for one lousy fresh fig? Or perhaps nightshade gives you special powers. Like night vision.

I am still a bit concerned about the possibility of poison. I got a bit of a stomach ache about an hour later, but I think it may have been psychosomatic. It quickly passed and I was fine. So far, this whole poisonous berry thing rocks.