Definition no. 18

Happiness is 

the juicy-sour sound of a wild cherry cracking in your mouth when you pull out the thin green leaf hanging out between your lips. Pop!

You press its soft smooth skin and flesh against the pallace waiting for the explosion of the dark red juice to flood your mouth. When it reaches the sides of your tongue, far back in your mouth, you suddently squeeze your eyes.

Your mouth thightens with an half surprised expression. You know what they taste like ever since you secretly ventured together with your friends to pick them from the neighbour’s tree. You were 9.

You remember Rex, the guardian dog making a riot in its paddock, barking from the top of its lungs: thieves in the cherry tree!

You were just laughing while filling up your mouth with 6-7 cherries of the time with the dexterity of a magician making sure you would not swallow the pits. Or just swallowed them because you just did not have the time to be bothered with unimportant details. You were hopping and springing from branch to branch, reaching higher until the sun would appear from behind the very last top leaves. You would struggle to keep balance and pray you hadn’t eaten too much to cause your fall and that your feet would not slip on a breaking arch. You would breathe in the windy warmth and turn into a super hero!

There, with the sun in the eyes, on a very amazingly thin elastic last branch you would pick the ripest cherry of all! The darkest, the most delicious ever! The ultimate prize!

You would be hanging from the top of the world wondering how you reached there while making fun of the small angry faces below your feet. They would be waiting for you, the thief, to climb down and get punished for your irreverentious act.

They looked so small and their worries so big! You were on top of the world! Scratched, bruised, dirty, sticky, sweaty and so delightfully happy! You got the best cherry! All the rest was insignificant details. Mom would give you a scold. She would forbid you to get out of the house for the rest of the summer holiday. And then she would hug you with tears in her eyes: you are so brave my child! And you would proudly smile to yourself: yes, I did it!

You walk the pit in your mouth, your teeth nibbling longly on the hard shell: you are on the top of your world!

Happiness is a sour cherry!