Strawberries

She had diligently tended her balcony strawberry plants for many weeks, waiting for the first berries to appear. Finally, in early July after the plant reluctantly flowered and started showing its fruit, she could see that there would not be many berries to speak of. Thus started the heavy fertilizing schedule, until the few berries grew into large uneven blobs. Then one morning, she intended to harvest the ripened fruit when to her horror she saw that all her plants had all been picked clean. She gloomily lamented her loss, but told herself that perhaps they had been put to better use by nature.

Strawberries, Part 2

A restless and lonely boy would often wander through the halls of his apartment complex, climbing the stairs and sliding down the banisters. Sometimes he would covertly climb around the neighbours' balconies, knowing fully well that he would be in deep trouble if he were caught. His guardian knew it was not an environment suited for such a boy, but leaving him with his parents was impossible at the moment. Early one morning, the boy stole out of his apartment and came across the balcony on the ground level teeming with strawberry plants. Temptation proved too strong, and his greedy hands plucked the strawberries one at a time until his face was stained red and his hands gripping the remains of the fruit. When he realized his grand folly, he ran back and his guardian found him at the doorstep brimming with tears. The boy could not verbalize his mistake, only admitting that he had pilfered them from an unknown source.

The next morning, she found a boy carrying a large basket of strawberries on her doorstep.