I was so impressed with my own punchline I feel like I took a few liberties with the challenge outline. Feel free to be critical!

Yes, I’ve done the same thing.

Sometimes we focus on the line we want to build around and we miss other things.

And one of those things might be a personal preference of mine, but I have problems with first person epitaphs; you obviously die, so how could you have written the story, It’s just something my nature can’t ignore.

Break a wing, now you write the story because you can’t fly to eat, you’re dying of starvation, you can die in italics if you want, (now I like that line, ha!)

But the clustered grapes as a harem is wonderful. I never thought of the challenge as being written by a non-human character, but hunting is hunting!

“They shifted gently as a man patrolled them, brushing powder from their curves and bulges and checking their firmness with a practiced pinch.” Makes my mouth water!

I re-read it a couple times, something was pinching me too. You should think about removing “olive”, you don’t need that and it confused me the first couple times because I confused the grapes and olives, and olives are food too.

Also, I could be wrong, but I think grapes plants only consist of a “trunk/stalk” and “vine”, no branches. Making these corrections broadens your audience, they will continue to read the story in interest if these facts are spot on.

I’m terrible about that. If I’m reading a novel, whether it’s fiction or not, some authors hide behind the fact that their story is fiction so they don’t do the research. And I focus on stuff that’s just thrown in that hasn’t been researched and I stop reading.

An author can write Western fiction about a train robbery, but the author still has to research trains and the Wild West for the story to be “plausible”.

I understand your objection to first person epitaphs. My feeling is: it’s true no one could narrate after their death, but no one could narrate while being alone in a vineyard, either.

Breaking a wing is a good alternative, though.

You’re absolutely right about cutting out the ‘olive’ – I’ll do that now.

Grapes do actually have branches – “I am the vine, you are the branches” – but what I didn’t realise is that it goes trunk-vine-branch not trunk-branch-vine. So what I meant is that the narrator got trapped by a vine – I’ll change that too.

Lovely rendition of a simple moment in nature as an erotic teleplay. Nicely done.

paronomasia is considered one of the lowest forms of humour. Most of the time, I tend to agree that puns stink, but…
Now, This ’lil ficly is like finding a quarter on the ground…it wont make you rich, but you pick it up, put it in your pocket, and it makes you feel lucky for finding it.

Why thank you, folks. Those are very thoughtful and thought-provoking comments.

OOH, I learned a lot from this story, I picked up a shiny quarter too. Nice job, great comments, and great response to the comments.

OOH, I learned a lot from this story, I picked up a shiny quarter too. Nice job, great comments, and great response to the comments.