When we were children and we swallowed fruit seeds…

A strange thing happen in Russia recently. Doctors discover a fir plant, two-inches, growing in a fella lung. Apparently, the fella did inhale a seed and it take root in he.

I know one set of people who would never doubt that this can happen.

Li’l Guyanese children.

We learn the possibility of such things right in we yard. Simple child-play teach we faster than school. Like the time me and Cousin Nan been playing war-attackle-break with second big brother, eating sour cherries with salt ‘n’ pepper, racing and hiding and destroying the enemy with handmade wood guns, one boy versus two girls, making pishiewww pishiewww shooting noises with we mouth.

“Awwk, awwwk, I swallow a seed,” Nan gasp. Wasn’t no big thing, was just a small, crushable fruit seed. But war stop.

“It gon grow in you belly,” second big brother say. “It gon grow through you nose and ears...”

Right then and there we believe that boy, no need for scientific proof.

But, as we grow up, new knowledge replace those lessons. I cut up fruits for breakfast, leaving papaya and watermelon seeds in the fruit. My mother believe that them is good for the body, and she got me chewing them now.

We settle down to breakfast at the pink kitchen table. I tell my mother the news about the Russian man. “Mummy, when you was a li’l girl, anybody ever tell you what gon happen to you if you swallow a fruit seed?”

“Yes, it gon grow through we ears and nose…”

“The thought ever scare you?”

“If! It was the most frightening thing you coulda imagine.”

“Is true, how that thing used to terrify me. But if you can have a tree growing in you, what kind of tree you would want?”

“None.”

“No, nooo...just pretend that is possible...what kind you would want?”

“Jasmine.”

“I would want persimmon. Nah, I think I want sapodilla. Sweet, sweet sapodilla. Ha, imagine walking ‘round with fruits coming out from you ears and nose.”

We eat in silence, imagining it.

Then, my mother being my mother, she can’t let the story end like that. She had to ask, “And where the root gon grow through?”

I chew them watermelon seeds to nothing, I ain’t taking no chances.