Chapter Text
The Garden of Eden
From his vantage point at the very top of the tree, Appley could just make out the silhouettes of the two humans walking into the desert. Kicked out. Gone.
Seemed a bit of an overreaction. I mean, the humans hadn’t known about Jeff when they’d eaten him. After all, Fujiel was The Apple of Knowing That the Apples in the Tree Were Sentient, and as far as Appley knew, no one had even tried to lick Fujiel.
“Better that the humans are gone, though,” Appley mused. “We really don’t need any more accidental eating around here.”
He clambered back down to the leafiest part of the tree, where most of the apples were hanging out.
“Humans are gone,” he announced. No one seemed to care. “Um… no one else is going to get eaten? Yay?”
“Shouldn’t you be hanging over there?” sneered Golden (one of the most popular, and in Appley’s opinion most annoying, apples in the tree.) “You know, where the less useful knowledge goes?”
“Oh, but all knowledge is useful,” Appley replied, waving his hands to emphasize his point. “That’s why I want to talk to God about this whole tree thing. I mean, if the humans were supposed to eat fruit to gain knowledge, doesn’t it make more sense to put it, I dunno, down there in the raspberry bush where it’s easy to get to, and the fruit is just regular fruit? And why put it in fruit at all? Why not just let the humans go out in the world and learn things?”
“You ask too many questions,” said Red (Golden’s twin and another very annoying apple.) They shook their branch, causing a leaf to smack Appley in the face. All the apples laughed.
“But it doesn’t make sense,” Appley insisted, determined not to let a few rotten cores keep him from making his point. “Even if we accept that the knowledge has to be in us, in this tree—which, per my earlier comments, we shouldn’t—then why put the tree where the humans can reach it? Why not put us, I dunno, on the moon?”
“That’s quite enough,” barked the McIntosh. As The Apple of The Knowledge of The Great Plan (supposedly), he was semi-officially chief apple of the whole tree. Appley thought he was kind of a wanker. “This inappropriate discussion is at an end.”
“But I was only ask—”
“Appley’s fermented,” Red interrupted.
“I can smell the ethylene on him,” Golden added. “Get rid of him before he spreads his rot to more of us.”
The McIntosh nodded. Without even a word of warning, he reached out and snapped Appley’s stem.
Appley cried out and grabbed for his branch, but in the haze of shock and pain, it slipped right through his fingers. He staggered, tumbled, and fell—down, down, down, banging and bumping over rough limbs and sharp leaves, falling and falling and falling.
The impact with the ground rattled his seeds. He thought he might vomit. And that wasn’t even the end of it. He bounced four, five, six times, then rolled and rolled until he didn’t even know which way was up. Maybe this was life now. Maybe he’d just roll forever, bruised and alone.
The garden wasn’t the void of space, though, and eventually he did stop. In fact, he stopped rather suddenly when he bumped into something.
“Oof,” the something said. Then, “Oh, dear. Are you quite alright?”
Appley blinked hard, trying to clear his vision. When the world finally came back into focus, he found himself staring up into the most beautiful face he’d ever seen.
“Ngk,” he said.