Longans

We bought some longans from the grocer's.

They're from Thailand and taste different. But they're one of my happiest fruits. Longans bring my grandfather right back to me, the two of us standing in his front yard, gazing hopefully up at the large branches of his longan trees, silently coaxing the small brown spheres to get plump and juicy faster. And at long last, him plucking them with a tall thin pole while I crab-walk around him with my hem held up as a mock basket to try and collect some of them as they fall.

Their smell is that of carefree summer days spent as a little princess overlooking my fruitdom.