Apple Tree

When I was young, I lived in the countryside, nestled safely within a regrowth town along the coastline. I remember running down gravel roads, hunting down chunks of asphalt that had seaweed dried into their cracks, looking for shells or scrap metal that the cleanup teams left behind. I remember when the sky still had wisps of black and gray coursing through its cooling veins. I remember when the world was healing.

I grew up where I watched the beach I heard so much about from my parents slowly reveal itself over the course of my first years. We lived a bit off from the big city that had been slowly reviving half of itself, healing its soaked and burnt shells of buildings. I was too young to know that this was not how it always was. But as a kid, I didn’t care much enough to ask. I had the dirt in my hands and the sun on my back, and that is all that everyone around me wanted as well. We didn’t ask for much more than that, as I was told to be grateful we had it at all.

I always loved plants. How green and bright they were, how they drank up the spotty rainfall and used it to grow taller and firmer. I watched as the ancient, tall trees, dried and dusty, had the ground beneath them sprout with hundreds of little beads of life. I watched as they grew with me, some faster, some slower. I remember how happy my parents were when I gifted them a sad little potato I had cultivated myself. They told me I’d help the world like that. I didn’t understand how, back then.

While the plants were beautiful, the ones I watered myself and patted the soil for, or the ones down in the overgrown ruins, were always grayer than I had hoped. I remember seeing photos of grand gardens and their vibrant greens and glistening fields of freshly-spritzed fruits, then looking back at the flower struggling on my windowsill, muted and weeping as another storm of smoke and smog had passed over our town.

There was one plant, though, that wasn’t that way. But it may as well have been locked inside a haunted house.

My friends and I heard stories about the old man in the house near the ocean, settled upon an unmovable cliff. About how scary he was, about how his gaze was still and blank like a corpse until someone would walk too close, and his piercing eyes would snap to them terribly. Nobody walked down that barren street.

But oh, how I wanted to, just to get another glimpse at that tree he kept in his backyard. I had seen but a fleeting flash of luxurious red hanging off its healthy, hydrated branches and leaves as I passed by on the back of my mother’s bike, a detour on the way to the market. I never would have gone by if I hadn’t been forced to, but now that I’d seen it, I had a dilemma. I had to see that beautiful tree, hidden away amongst ash from the last of the great fires and hot salt-soaked soil and rock. I had to know it was real, I had to know that such a beauty was allowed to live in this recovering world. That it was possible.

But that required seeing the scary older man who lived there, and for a while, I didn’t think myself brave enough. I biked by one day, peddling as fast as possible, and tossed a glimpse toward the small wooden house. I saw her— the fluttering of leaves under a perfect sunbeam, yes, it was the tree I had seen before— but I also saw him, guarding her, sitting on his porch in an old chair and reading with a scowl pressed into his brow and a dark, worn blue blanket cloaked around his shoulders. He even read books in a way that frightened young me.

Every time I looked up at the slowly bluing sky, there was a plant in view, and my gaze was drawn to it every time. I began to sigh, for none of them was nearly as bright and wonderful as that tree in the old man’s yard by the sea. My curiosity began to slip into dangerous territory, the pull too strong. She was as bright as the photos my grandparents would send us, photos of those grand forests and glades and gardens, bushels of flowers that seemed infinite, photos from before my parents were born. I looked at them again one day, jumped on my rickety bicycle, and huffed my way up and down hills and through dusty spans of dirt to get to the tree as soon as possible, for I had again begun to doubt such an angelic tree could ever live among this black and white film.

I creaked to a stop and hid my bike near a bush, spitting the cold sea spray out of my mouth as I was hit with an airy wave of it. I heard the chime of polished metal and clean shells hit in the wind that came with the kiss of the cooling ocean. Suddenly, I felt as though I were intruding upon this strangely intimate place, for despite the breeze, something warm flowed through my tiny body as I approached the feared old house and beheld another look at the top branches of the tree, centered among rows of leaves and vines, but that was all I could see. In my trance, I skulked closer to the fence between me and that wonderful being.

A twig snapped beneath my foot, but nothing stirred nearby. I did, however, acutely hear the sound of a worn plank, driftwood-like in nature, groan under someone’s step. I froze, thinking I would soon be bolting back to my bike under the threat of the shotgun that the man was rumored to own, but no such thing happened. The windchime just continued to sing with the ruffle of leaves as its percussion.

Something got the better of me. Perhaps it was the prospect of seeing the whole thing. I had teased myself with a peek, and now I wanted to rip the wrapping off the earthly gift. I crept along the sides of the house until the porch came into view and spotted the dots of shells engraved into the ends of the boards. It looked like a bejeweled wharf, sturdy and proud.

My hesitation faltered and brought my view steadily upon the old man, who sat where he always did, flipping gently through a soft-papered book, its edges fraying and spine bound by leather, once rough, but now smooth from repeated touch.

My mouth hung open, seeing the relic up close, seeing how ancient it was. It looked as though it could fall apart with a drop of water, but it rested so peacefully in the man’s rough hands. I figured he was about the age of my grandparents, the burnt generation. He did not look burnt, though, despite most of them sporting some scar from the old world’s fall. He must have been quite intelligent. I did not recognize that until later, though.

I stared until he turned to peer down at me, slowly, and I became more aware of the soft dirt under my raggedy shoes and the shade cast over me from a looming palm further off, for his eyes reminded me of mossy soil hidden within a clearing in a cool forest, a flare of color dotted among it from the lenses of his glasses.

He blinked and tilted his head at me, then tenderly placed a bookmark between the pages of his book and set it next to him, resting his hand atop it.

“You’re a brave one,” he told me. “Nobody visits me these days.”

My gaze flicked from him to the book and back toward the tree waiting behind us.

“Come around. I don’t bite.”

I stumbled around and cautiously climbed up a step to the porch where the old man sat. He looked up to me and leaned forward a little.

“Something brought you here?”

I blinked, unable to speak. Somehow, he understood, then beheld his reading material again.

“Do you all have these anymore?”

I nodded. His eyes brightened.

“Oh, that’s good to hear. Books are important.”

I pointed tentatively at his, starting to ask what that one was, but still no sound came out, so I shut my mouth again.

“This one? Do you want to see it?”

I stepped closer, increasingly curious.

“Well, be very gentle. You look a soft one. This is a very old story.”

I took the bound book in my hands, confirming just how soft it was to hold, and shakily opened it to find the ink dried into the yellowed tree pulp, with words hastily scribbled by hand among the margins. One was slanted and flowery, the other more purposeful and smaller in size. I leafed through a few pages, not reading the story itself, but hunting for another drawing. Accompanied by the notes, the two writers had taken to doodling what I could only deduce were parts from the story. There were dragonic figures delicately sketched into place by the smaller writer’s hand, princesses and knights by the other. Sometimes their drawings overlapped and made a full picture. Some pages had the dragons printed into them, illustrated in the same style as the messier, inky ones.

I looked back up at the man, voice finally deciding to return. I asked him how old it was.

“How old? Hmm. Well, I was eighteen when it was written. Years before the world fell.”

I asked who drew and wrote all over its delicate pages; a smile tugged at his face. His chair creaked as he leaned forward some more and took the book, flipping to a printed drawing of a majestic dragon and pointing at it with a tap.

“I drew the creatures for this book,” he told me, “the notes and doodles are just cut content.”

How of the other writer, then, who was proud with every stroke of their pen or pencil?

He looked at the floor, taking his glasses off and tucking them away before he slowly stood, a slight smile still evident on his face, as he folded the blanket he had draped over him up and started toward the front door. He turned the knob and answered me softly.

“The author made those.”

I gaped before following him in, and he paid no mind to it, placing the blanket upon a patched-up couch and patting it down. He put the book up on a tall shelf among many that looked like it. Further down the shelves were photos weary with time, faded plastic bricks clicked into fantastical ships and beings, and the odd plant or cup of clean water. There was, in fact, a shotgun present, but mounted up above the fireplace next to fantastical swords.

I turned my attention back to the shelf. The photos were of two teenagers, small and contained behind glass that couldn’t help but catch dust in hard-to-clean places, with smiles on their faces that were practically cheek-to-cheek. All over the house’s interior, I found, did these two grin, a girl with browning blonde hair and a boy with earthy eyes and curls. The more I looked, the older they got, going from young, glowing, awkwardly-bodied adolescents dressed for prom to fully grown adults standing with their arms wrapped around each other as they shared a kiss beneath a flowering arch, the woman’s dress shimmering golds and whites I could never have dreamed of being so pure.

The old man made his way to a tank, sprinkling some food in for the fiery fish that lived inside. A diploma, I recall, was framed just above it, for something relating to the ocean, the thing that had swallowed up cities.

I saw notes, shared again by both hands’ artistry, posted in various places. Things reminding the man to sleep well; to take his meds; to go outside; to clean his room; to love himself. Things written, in the author’s handwriting, that said she loves him.

I had collected it in my head, then. The author is the old man’s wife, and he has been reading her books every day.

Are you waiting for her? I piped up to him, now taken to admiring the structures one of them had built out of that material that was never to wash up on shore again. I heard him stop, I heard him breathe in and exhale deeply.

“No,” he told me.

Why not, I inquired, walking over to him, taking care not to bump anything in this relic from the past, this place that felt so warm and loved and lived in.

He peered at the wedding photo, then toward the window blinds that obscured the view of the tree awaiting. He did not answer my question.

“You want to see the tree, don’t you?”

I remembered, yes, how could I forget? Yes, yes, yes, I wanted to see the beautiful tree, I wanted to bask in its color and learn how it was flourishing so!

The smile on his face began to return as he opened the door to the backyard. The world sparkled before me, suddenly flooded in light and sugar, as there stood the tree.

An apple tree. Hanging from its branches were bright red apples that shone under the sunlight. The grass beneath it was just as alive, trimmed but flowing from the passing zephyr, no weeds intruding on the thick brown trunk that stretched up toward the sky and drank its life-giving light to produce what I could only assume would be bushels of glistening red apples. I had never seen anything like it before. Fruits were becoming more common, yes, but never have they been so heavenly. My mouth watered at the very sight.

Tearing my gaze away, I saw more inside of this Garden of Eden; a place that had been ever so often mentioned between adults; a mythical paradise, and here it was. Here it was, with lush green grapes and bushes of rosy yellow flowers, blue petals blooming as they climbed up the sides of the fence and house walls and made an indescribably wonderful scent drift through and bless my senses, a mix of fresh dirt and sea spray and blooming coastal flowers.

The old man picked at a stray clover near the base of the apple tree and flicked it away, brushing his hand up the trunk and running his fingers over the shining green leaves. His smile returned in full, and he looked down at me again.

“What do you think?"

I told him it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He chuckled.

“You haven’t seen much yet, then. But I appreciate it.”

I pressed him for more. How was this place so colorful, so alive? How was this tree so wonderful?

“You really do like it, huh?”

I was very enthusiastic in my answer.

“That’s good. We need more like you. Plants are essential to our life. But I’m sure you know that by now.” He inhaled and sighed. “I’m happy you think it’s as pretty as I do.”

Yes, yes, oh, how angelic the sight was. How did he make such an oasis among the ruin and gray outside? And the tree, being so large and fruitful, how old was it?

The old man holds his hands behind his back, and his shoulders slump.

“It’s quite old. I’ve had it since it was just a sapling. I was forty-five. So this, she’s only forty.”

That would mean it had survived the burning, the fall, the floods, everything. How was that possible?

He didn’t answer immediately.

“She’s very special to me,” he’d mumbled. “I protected her with my life. As I vow to forever.” He turned and delicately grinned. “I had some help, though. My studies and some friends of mine, they helped.”

After a moment of swallowing my nerves, I asked for an apple. He seemed hesitant, but after a moment, he nodded and picked me one, carefully getting down on a knee to hand it to me before standing back up.

“Wouldn’t hurt,” he muttered as I took it, then looked down and smiled. “I think she’d want you to have it, anyway.”

I thanked him and took a crisp bite, the life packed with cream-colored sugary crunch exploding upon my tongue, flowing down my throat as juice and joy. I saw how my teeth had marked its pure red flesh. It was so alive. I beamed, and seeing me, the man did, too. I felt filled with strength, filled with happiness, inhaling the clean, fragrant air as the clouds passed by above me, holding this key to a new world, and I felt as though the sun’s light had grown brighter just then.

I took to visiting him every day I could, and he helped me tend to his garden as he explained how he let the color bloom from the ground below. I did not stop as I grew older, learning more about the world before, when everything was full of color, and fresh air and cold water were used and wasted in a way that brought laughter to all.

He told me about what happened to the planet, how there used to be billions more of us. How he tried to help others like him save lives in the ocean, life just as important as the life where we stand. How his wife, the author of many books, was once a famous name, telling stories about wonderful worlds and the love within them, but when the world descended, he had to collect her texts before they were lost to raging fire or waves.

Now I tell you this, as you have seen the two beautiful trees outside our yard now, my children, and not one, but two apple trees; his skill in gardening was not the entire story. He did not bring forth such color from being perfect; the lab-grown fruits I had to eat when I was young were perfect, yet lacked that color that I sought out. They held no soul, no love within them.

One day, I learned.

The old man’s wife had passed away soon after the old world had fallen, a mutinous disease from before our time, one that left her stuck between two digital lines to hold onto her life. Her very existence relied on that sort of world, the big laboratories that produced a special protein that her body didn’t make before, the technology that told her when she was in danger. With those burnt or swept or flooded away, she had nothing to save her.

The old man told me, one day, that as she had decided to leave on her own terms, in his arms and under the safety of her own house, she requested something. She did not wish to be burnt and scattered among the ash of everything else. She touched his face and kissed him gently as she told him,

“Bury me. Bury me in the dirt, let flowers sprout from my body, plant new life upon my lost flesh and let me become one with the earth, so as it grows and you go on, I will always be a part of you, I will always be with you. You will never lose me, my love; we will only be in different worlds for a little while. I will kiss you again. I will meet your eyes in the veins of new life, and we will never be apart.

Go on, go on with your life, but all I wish is for you to care for me, even if I cannot embrace you anymore. I will always be here, as beautiful as you say I am, to keep you smiling every day, to keep you fed and happy. I can promise you that. Nothing could keep me from you. We will meet again, love. I promise. Bury me, I will be your apple tree.”

Now, beneath the soil of our garden, our two best trees bloom before they fruit together, their roots intertwined.

I wrote this short story for myself and my boyfriend. I thought I'd share it regardless. I hope you enjoyed it.