HYPERPERSIMMONOSIS

On our walk through the woods today, after I'd picked and inadequately peeled some genuinely wild persimmons and as a result had my mouth pucker as though I'd used an alum mouthwash (those really wild persimmons are so astringent you have to peel ¼ inch off to be able to eat the little that's left, as I now know). My mouth was so astringified that it was difficult to carry on a fluid conversation, so it was something of a convenient miracle to come upon the perfect forest antidote for extreme hyperpersimmonosis: a whole stone outcropping covered in the dark green leaves and gleaming red berries of fully ripe ki-ichigo (cloudberries; lit: tree strawberries). My mouth trying vainly to water at the sight, I broke off some long sections of the thin, berry-laden vines and carried them along like a fistful of ruby necklaces as I slowly picked off and ate the rubies, thereby restoring the liquidity of my loquacity.