under the apple tree

I started a story. I could go on and on with it, but I'll stop and leave it unfinished, as it is, and call it a blog post.


Once upon a time, there was a great big apple tree --a fruitful thing that had enough apples for everyone. 

The people lived beneath the apple tree, as that was their source of nourishment. They lived in two groups: the group that lived in the grass directly under the apple tree; and the group that lived in pits that had been dug out of the way of the roots.

Some of the group who lived in the grass above set about climbing the tree to collect the apples. They were industrious. They grew thick calluses on their hands and feet from scaling the trunk, and when they shook the branches, apples rained down from above. Some of the apples rolled into the pits, but most of the apples landed in the grass and stayed there until a grass-dweller happened to feel peckish and leaned down to pick it up.

One day, a pit-dweller named Sam, who had gone hungry for quite enough time, called up. "Can someone please throw down an apple? I'm starving down here!"

What was this noise from below? wondered the grass-dwellers. And why was it demanding apples?

"If you would like an apple, why don't you climb the tree like everyone else?" snapped a grass-dweller named George (who hadn't, in fact, climbed the tree himself but had certainly broken a sweat watching those who had).

"We've been down here trying to climb out of the pits!" called up another pit-dweller named Lucy. "We'd gladly climb the tree --our hands are strong now, from trying to grapple with the dirt, but whenever we dig in, the dirt gives way, and we tumble back down again."

"Fine. Here. Have an apple." George tossed down the core of the apple he had been happily gnawing away at before the complaining began. It's not like he could enjoy it anymore with all of that racket going on below. They didn't have enough energy to climb the apple tree --where did they get all of this energy to complain so loudly?

"That was generous of you," a grass-dweller named Maude complimented George. "Too generous. You don't want to encourage their sloth! And they're devious, too. Do you know, just the other day, I was reaching down to pick up an apple, and one of those pit-dwellers grabbed my ankle and pulled me over and stole my apple! You're much more generous that I would be. They don't deserve it."

"Oh, I know. It was just to get some peace and quiet. I was done with it, anyway."

"Still, it'll only encourage them to be loud again."

"We can hear you, you know," Lucy called up.

"See what I mean?"



It was just an idea that came to mind when I woke up one day this week. I stopped where humanity looks pretty bleak, but it doesn't have to end that way. Any ideas for how the two groups can come together?

And some questions about what's already there:

• What do you think of the pit-dweller who stole the apple?
• Do you think it makes sense for only some of the grass-dwellers to climb the apple tree? Why or why not?
• How did the grass-dwellers and the pit-dwellers end up in such different circumstances in the first place (with the pit-dwellers obviously placed at a disadvantage)?