As I picked blackberries, a low humming was the only sound in the quiet woods on this warm, late summer afternoon. The house-high brambles, growing in a scalloped pattern, extended prickly arms on either side, as if to embrace me. I felt securely alone in the world but knew the man in my life was on the other side of the dense briar bush, also picking the plump black fruit. The wine we intended to ferment would be a deep, luscious, rich, ruby red.

With my picking bucket almost full, the sun’s heat caressed my bare shoulders, lending me a lassitude that hummed right along with the deep, droning buzz that permeated my solitude.

“Honey, run!” my husband hollered. “Yellow jackets are swarming!”

Turning, I was horrified to see a cloud of deadly insects swarming at knee height between me and freedom. I had unknowingly crushed their ground hive beneath the heel of my boot as I entered the horseshoe area created by the enclosing blackberry vines.

Trapped, I had no choice. To stay was to die. With a ragged breath, I dashed through the mass. Grabbing my beloved’s hand, we ran for our lives.

The berries in our buckets bounced out as we raced down the hill to the safety of our car. Jumping inside, we quickly rolled up the windows and locked the doors to keep the raging devils from lethally punishing us for my crime.

“Ow!” I screamed, batting at my tortured thigh. “One stung me!”

My husband yelped, too, swatting at another of the little beasts.

Four in all had invaded our sanctuary. We flailed in the confined space, slapping and smacking and whacking about us until all the furious attackers were dead.

Panting from our exertions and sweating in the stifling heat of our airless battlefield, our heads tipped back to rest on the top of the car seat.

“Somehow, I don’t feel victorious,” I wheezed, massaging the ache on the outer side of my injured thigh.

The love of my life chuckled humorlessly as his hand pressed against his own wound—on the tender inside of his upper thigh. Then he said, “We may have won the battle but I think we lost the war.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

He pointed to the empty picking buckets. “They not only robbed us of the all the blackberries, they made sure there’s not a chance in hell of us ever coming back.”