A Curious Girl: On raspberries and death, and what I think about when walking home

So both my mother and I love raspberries to pieces. Seeing as Mum had the obsession first, she just loves to say, 'Hey, I bought a punnet of raspberries today', and when I say, 'Oh really, where are they?' she'll tell me she ate them.

What's the point of torturing me like this? Why doesn't she just keep quiet? She seems to think that because she has the obsession first, she has more right to raspberries than I do.

So when I was walking home today, I saw a grocer's, with raspberries - 95p a punnet. I had a pound on me, so I went and bought one. Remembering that we might have some cream left over from Sunday, I decided to save some in the punnet after eating a few (they were very nice). Soon enough, I was crossing a road into the town where I live, and reflecting that there were plenty of cars around yet I was foolishly crossing when the red man ('Don't walk') was showing (jaywalking isn't a crime in England). I could just visualise the cars stopped at the red light suddenly pulling out and killing me. All right, so they were about a metre away and the most harm they could do was maybe nudge me a bit, but I have a very vivid imagination. So as I would be crumpled up on the road, the punnet of raspberries would undoubtedly fly into the air and probably escape the impact unharmed.

I reflected. Killing someone by mistake is probably very stressful. I mean, last night I attempted a mock driving test and panicked when I nearly dented a parked car, so killing someone has got to be quite nasty. I mean, I wouldn't feel vindictive if they'd done it by accident, being a fairly terrible driver myself, at the moment anyway. In that situation, the passengers of the car that splatted me would be fully justified in eating the raspberries. I'd want them to. Honestly.

However, human beings being what they are, they wouldn't. For some reason, consuming the delicious soft fruit of your victim who didn't live to enjoy it is probably considered bad taste. In anguish, my killers would probably hand the punnet to my parents wrapped in a black cloth. 'She was holding these when we crashed into her,' they'd tearfully say.

All right, I can understand guilt. But human beings being what they are, the fact that these were the last things I was in the middle of consuming before I died, superstition is created. My mother might be overcome with guilt at the times she had eaten the raspberries all by herself, and seeing that I'd saved some, might conclude that they were meant for her. In order to set things right, the raspberries would probably be thrown six feet under with my coffin. What a waste. I'm in the place where raspberries are an inch wide and ripe all year around, and my family can't even cope with eating the earthly ones in my honour.

I was so concerned by this picture, I thought about asking my mother what she'd do. But can you imagine it?

'Mum... supposing I bought some raspberries...'

'You bought some raspberries?' she'd say, her eyes bloodshot.

'Er, no, hypothetically speaking...'

'Er, yes, ok.'

'And I got killed in a car crash because I didn't wait for the green man but the raspberries survived intact?'

'What?'

'You would eat them, wouldn't you?'

It just wouldn't work!

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