Today, I have

Today, I have purchased a copy of A World Too Near. I have in fact already finished reading it: just under two hours' work, completed just under two minutes from midnight.

This is not important.

Today, I have purchased also a box of blueberry chocolates, by Harry & David.

This is.

Moreover, it is important — and desperately so — that they are delicious. They closely resemble extra-large almond M&Ms, except with dried blueberries instead of almonds at the center, and made with much, much better chocolate.

They are also the sort of purple to inspire a certain color of prose.

Alternately, they resemble in size and coloration nothing so much as Kalamata olives; and, having also just had some of the latter, I assert that they resemble in taste precisely the opposition thereof — sweet and rich and melting where the olive is tart and spiky, two delicious contrasting extremes.

Not at the same time, obviously. I shouldn't at all like to combine them in an uncontrolled environment; there might be a sudden and catastrophic release of energy equivalent to the detonation of approximately 5.5 megatons of TNT, releasing high-energy edysmons and geusmons across the Houston area. Cloudy with a chance of mushrooms.