An apple is not a mere fruit to me. It is a good reminder of my childhood. It is the only device that can transport me back to my past life—life before twenty years—when I was a small country boy with small eyes, small nose and of course, a small brain. The days when our minds could conceive nothing bigger than the thought of small enchanting apples, when our minds could hold nothing higher than the thought of short and broken apple tree. My childhood was spent looking enviously at the old broken apple tree that bore small, beautiful, blood-red apples.
There was only one apple tree in our village. It bore small, blood-red apples every autumn. Our excitement levels would go up the very moment the tree would begin bearing small buds, later turning them into the flowers of spring. We would count days, we would count nights. Every day after coming back from the school, we would gather and devise plans of robbing the entire apple harvest once Autumn set in. We would talk about the apples and surmise their taste with an air of inquisitiveness.
“How might it taste?” It was the question we all had deep in our minds.
“They are so red. They must taste sweet just like honey,” one would present his logic.
“But honey isn’t red; it’s yellow in color. Red apples can’t taste sweet. Apples must be yellow to taste sweet,” another one would argue.
“It might taste spicy just like red chilly does,” another one would add his logic.
“No, apples can’t taste spicy. There is no apple in the world like you said,” I would say.
“But have you ever eaten one?”
“No,”
And at the end of the conversation, we would consider every one of us to be false as no one had ever tasted a single apple yet.
He was as old as his tree. He was broken. He was alone. The owner of that apple tree was an old man who had very a thin and long moustache. His face was rendered interesting by the countless wrinkles that crossed across
each other. He was the only old man in the village who swore to small children like us back then. We never saw him talking with his other contemporaries. He was always alone and serious; without the faintest trace of a smile on his dry lips—as if he were the most unfortunate man on earth.
In our eyes, however, he was the most fortunate man God had ever created because he was the owner of the apple tree. Since he was the only one who possessed an apple tree in the entire village, we would refer to him as “Apple Father”. But that didn’t help to change his feelings of hatred into love towards us.
We could never figure out why he never gave us the privilege to savouring his apples in spite of our countless hearty requests. It baffled us even more when he wouldn’t enjoy his privilege himself . . .
Every year all the apples would ripen without being touched; all of them ended up rotting and decaying. The mysteries surrounding the old man remain veiled in the back of my mind. We never stopped fantasizing about the apples. Although in spite of countless attempts we never succeeded.
Time passed without us getting what we’d always wanted. We kept struggling. Years kept on adding themselves to our ages, our heights doubled, our voices changed, our minds changed as well; still, our love for apples remained constant. It had, in fact, grown stronger.
It was a night as bright as the day; the full moon shone at its brightest. That night all of us gathered at my house, hatched a plan, and carrying a large sack full of stitches, moved silently towards old man’s house. The apple tree beside his dilapidated house looked even more arresting in the moon light as did the apples that hung so low all over it. Our appetite for apples which had lain suppressed for ages could not be suppressed any longer. We jumped into the garden. Fortunately, the dog tied to his post, was in deep slumber—unlike on other days.
“Sh! Keep your voice down!” I said to a friend who let out an exclamation of excitement after picking an apple that hung low on the branch.
“You, climb the tree slowly and very carefully just like a lizard, okay?” I began allotting tasks to everyone in a voice that was almost a whisper.
“And you, just keep the sack wide open so that we can throw the apples into it easily. I will keep lookout for the old man. I will cough if I see him and you should all get ready to run then, okay?”
One of my friends asked if he could try an apple. I denied his request, saying that we would all eat together. Though I myself desired to eat one afterwards, I controlled myself to remain true to my words.
If only I had given him permission to eat, I could have eaten one as well and things would have been entirely different….
We would not need to fantasise again. We wouldn’t have to argue about its taste anymore. We wouldn’t have to suppress our appetites for don’t know how many more years. But we were preordained to do so. We were fated to suffer even more intensely.
I still haven’t figured out why I had so much confidence in myself; that we would so certainly succeed in our venture. Why had been I been so foolish to deny someone’s desire to relish an apple even if I didn’t want to? Why couldn’t once I have thought the possible plight that might befall us? Why had wewanted to rob all the apples and denude the tree? Why couldn’t we have satisfied ourselves with one or two apples?
I had become too selfish; we had become too vengeful of the old man unnecessarily…
We picked all the apples; we packed them in a sack, but we couldn’t eat even a slice. We couldn’t know the real taste of it. And it’s all because of ourselves, our own foolishness!
Eventually everything got ready… Perhaps I was had become relaxed by the possibility of our success. It must be. I was too confident and I failed to notice the stealthy approach of the old man with his furious dog. Everyone jumped and scattered. I ran straight towards my house.
Perhaps, he took the sack full of apples to his room. Perhaps, he tossed it in one dark corner only for it to rot and decay eventually.
Aargh!!! Our struggle had been for nothing.
These days, whenever I see an apple, I instantly get transported back to my childhood. I remember my childhood friends. I remember the mysterious old man and his thin, long moustache. I remember the old apple tree that looked so arresting at the stroke of full-moon midnight. I always wonder why my group of friends could never become the apple of the old man’s eyes!
Indeed, many mysteries are yet to unfold—mysteries yet to befall, those already being experienced. I don’t know exactly why, but ever since that night, my seemingly insatiable appetite for apples has become lost to me…
- Sangram Lama
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