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There was, on a small volcanic island in the Pacific, with the volcano inactive and a crater in the ocean, a large tree. A very large tree, in fact, willowy and tall and distinctly deciduous, an outlier on the somewhat tropical climate full of hot, damp winds no matter what time of year it was. This tree peeked out like a periscope over the horizon, watching the sun set for many sunsets, occasionally shedding its leaves, growing fruit, discarding petals into a thick rain of pink and white on the rainforest clime below. Perhaps a pet project from a slightly megalomaniacal old man who had long since died - this tree was here, and there was a ladder built into its side, tall and imposing.
Jade grabbed, hand over hand, each rung in turn. Climbing up this tree had been a perennial project since childhood; whenever she needed an escape from both adventure and her stifling home, she would climb up the tree. Up, up, up the tree, away from the ground below, away from the rest of the world. There was no treehouse to escape to, no need to get to civilization by abandoning civilization, no, it was much more simple than that. Eventually, the ladder disappeared into the morass of thick branches and leaves.
She grabbed hold of a "branch" - really, a tiny trunk - thicker than her torso, and pulled herself up. She used to bring a backpack with her, ate lunch up here, but now she picked from its strange, multifarious branches. A peach on one limb, an orange on another, an apple on a third. She wasn't going to pretend she understood this tree, or what her grandfather was thinking when he... created it? Bought it? Acquired it? Whatever verb he did to it, it was certainly far larger and far sturdier than it ever had a right to be, continuing to grow thicker each year, its roots likely compromising the entirety of the island now, a network of thick, nutrient-seeking extensions of the self.
She often wondered why Grandpa would even have a thing like this. It was small when she was a child, well, still the tallest tree in the rainforest, but now, years later, it was a veritable Yggdrasil. There was no way he could've experienced the strange tree's fruits or its joys while he was alive. It was simply not something that worked out, chronologically speaking, and Jade didn't think of the almighty Jake Harley as someone who did things that weren't immediately advantageous to him. She thought about this a lot, whenever she climbed up the tree, and today was no different. Even as her skilled hands pulled her up from branch to branch, brachiating like a skillful ape, familiar with every knot and whorl of wood in the tree.
She continued up, no longer able to see the outside world, contained in a thick sphere of leaves of varying colors and shapes. Every single little branch and twig seemed to grow a slightly different leaf, like some sort of absurd, clownish Frankenstein's monster of trees, colors of wood and textures of bark blending into each other smoothly. The higher up she went, the stranger the leaves got, stretching out thin, fanning out wide, turning unfamiliar shades of green, bright lime and deep jade, reaching higher echelons of treetop with every passing minute of frantic climbing. It was a mystery to be unraveled, but without any clues. Why does this tree exist? Jade's burning curiosity, as always, drove her higher and higher, until she reached a point where she could no longer climb without risking snapping a branch beneath her.
She climbed into the nest of twigs and limbs and looked up at the barest slivers of the sun peeking through, tiny white shards piercing between the ever-shifting gaps in the canopy. A branch above her shook with weight, and dropped a small, spherical thing onto her stomach with the force of a light punch, making her cough up air, flail for purchase. Once she was secure back in the leaves, no longer scrambling frantically, trying not to fall, she examined whatever had hit her, reaching down to grab it and bring it to her face. She adjusted her glasses with her fingers, silently examining.
It was about the size of her fist, covered in a thick, rind-y body reminiscent of a dozen different citrus fruits she had eaten in her life. At the top was a thick, woody stem. With a pinch of her fingers, and a very natural-feeling tug, the dappled green-yellow-orange rind of the fruit began to peel away, revealing a strange, sectioned, hybrid interior, wedges of wedges in all the colors of the citrus rainbow. Pink, orange, lime green, yellow, whatever the hell blood oranges were, all surrounding an equally strange wooden core of what were very clearly apple seeds, easily plucked and discarded over her shoulder.
She grabbed one of the wedges, separating it easily from the rind like it was made to come off of it. She quietly popped it into her mouth and began to chew, shutting her eyes, letting the sunlight hit the back of her eyelids.