The ghost-fruit dangle like unpicked cherries, dark with abandoned promises, gleaming with possibilities cut short. Take a ghost in your paw, they say, bite into its flesh and you’ll live a lifetime anew.

You came here out of curiosity, but not ignorance. You know the choice you make when you pick a ghost from its tree, squeeze it until near-intangible rind overflows with sweet, bitter juice, and take a bite.

The ghost envelops you, a lifetime of strife, of love, of pain, of triumph and sorrow and longing.

It embraces you, squeezes you in return, fills you with memory of first love, sweet and bursting with expectation like distilled pomegranate. Then comes regret, a wash of maroon and bitter wine. Third love rushes by in a whirlwind of sunbeams, quenched too soon.

And then the ghost is done with you; it has shown you all it wished to share.

As its discarded unflesh floats to the undergrowth below, lingering complex notes tease your tongue, and at last are gone.