When you are carrying too much, something will give. The paper bag will tear and wrestle itself from your grasp. The persimmons inside the bag will roll onto the kitchen floor, each the colour of last evening’s brilliant, boiling setting sun.
It will be up to you to grumble over your slight misfortune. Or to seize the moment to wonder at the beauty of that radiant orange skin against the pale stone. Or to laugh as the black Shepherd, with her quick, white teeth, steals one piece of fruit after the other, as fast as you can gather them up and gently place them in the bowl you had intended for them.