Before I put the fig in my mouth, you tell me a wasp has been inside it. What prevents you from eating it is knowing this, and that the females have it worst: they die

once their eggs are planted inside somewhere beyond the syconium, eggs that were fertilized by their brothers long before their sisters grew their wings, wings they are destined to lose on their way into a fig. Who asked them if they wanted to be fated to fruit the rest of their lives? Who warned them the trail of a scent could change everything?

I bite and rub the seeds with my tongue, press them against the roof of my mouth as if to store them knowing someone in the future will enjoy the story more than the fig beside a campfire, as if the wasps could speak only after being swallowed within the flesh of another.