The Apple-Cherry Tree

In an orchard of only apple trees there stood a lone cherry tree that gave 200 apples every year. As spring turned to fall with life still rejoicing, the boughs of the tree would be weighed down by this enormous quantity of the ripe red fruit.

The man who owned the orchard was an apple lover and he loved the cherry tree. He was happy with his life and he was happy with the apples.

Of all the apple trees in the orchard it was the cherry tree that gave the most delicious apples.

But one day he bit down on an apple and found it to be bitter. The sweetness had disappeared. His apples were the sweetest in all the world yet he could only taste bitterness. He became sad and depressed. His appetite was destroyed and the apples in his orchard which had never been allowed to go bad before started to rot with neglect.

And thus it was that one spring day he wandered over to the cherry tree in the time of its yield and found beneath it a maiden of beauty past compare. She had a hand kerchief spread out on her lap and was eating some small red fruit from it.

‘Who are you and what are you eating?’ the man asked.

She gazed upon him with eyes of blue and lips of red with a single strand of juice slipping down her chin and said.

‘My name is Yuki and these are cherries. Want to have one?’

The man accepted the cherry from the maiden and ate it after some apprehension. The apprehension though turned into delight as the sweetness that filled his mouth was different and more beautiful than the monotonous taste of the apples. He immediately came to the conclusion that cherries were better than apples.

‘I have never had cherries before. I can’t believe what I’ve been missing out on. There are unfortunately only apples in my orchard.’ He mumbled with his mouth full of cherries as the women had offered some to him again.

The woman smiled at him and said ‘I never liked apples’

They fell in love beneath that apple-cherry tree and the man took her as his wife. And from that day forth the cherry tree, as though suddenly aware of its name, started to yield cherries and not apples to the man. The apple trees followed suit as well and the orchard was resplendent with cherries.

The man now had an abundance of cherries and he and his wife ate them with joy.

But the question remains, like the apples will the cherries grow bitter to the man one day as well?

-Rohith