orchard, coconut, cuddly, foot, gritty, behind
My grandfather had an apple orchard when I was just a boy, and when we’d go to visit him I would walk between the trees until I could no longer see the house, pretending I had vanished fully into some other realm made of bark, and branches, and ripening fruit. When they were in season, the apples were everywhere and could be summoned at will by the simple reach of my hand. I walked every corner and row of that orchard, and came to know it as well as I knew my childhood bedroom or the yard behind my house.
Which is why I was somewhat surprised when I pulled myself from the ocean on that deserted island and found my grandfather’s orchard there. Each tree was placed exactly as I remembered, and walking amongst them I felt as though the big farmhouse and the dusty driveway were just out of view, and that if I only kept walking I would see them both, and the car my parents had driven there, and maybe my grandfather himself waving from the doorway with a fresh slice of apple pie on a plate. It wasn’t so, of course. Outside of the orchard it was just a regular tropical island, and there were no apples growing on trees, just a few coconuts here or there. I walked the whole circumference of the island, testing the borders of my new realm, and made the circuit in less than a day. I saw no sign of human life, only the chittering sound of monkeys now and then and lots of bugs. I supped on apples in the evening and wondered at my good fortune. The climate was too hot for apple trees to thrive, but there they were, and I was grateful since I never really cared for coconuts.
I thought of my grandfather. He must have been here before me, maybe many years before, for only he could have recreated his old orchard so exactly down to the last detail. But he had died years before, when I was sixteen or seventeen, and hadn’t exactly been mobile for many years before that, so these trees must have been planted at least thirty or forty years before the day I washed up on their shore. It seemed improbable. The trees looked young and well-tended, though there was not a soul in sight. There was a mystery in it that seemed to overwhelm all my fears for my predicament.
Grandpa had been a quiet man with rough hands, always working. When we stayed over at his house, I would come downstairs to the kitchen early and find him brewing coffee and starting some breakfast and watching dawn come in through the kitchen window. Saying nothing, he would fix a small cup for me and scramble some eggs, handing them over on a plate with a wink and then a quick, absentminded pat on the head. I didn’t much care for eggs back home, but at grandfather’s house I ate every bite. The eggs tasted old, gritty, like a recipe from another time. They were just scrambled eggs, though, and I never understood how eating them could make me feel like I had been transported to some long-gone decade.
To say I was afraid of him wouldn’t be exactly wrong, but it wouldn’t be exactly right either, for he was unknowable and distant, and I stood in awe of all he had seen and done and knew how to do and how little he spoke of it all. When he was around, I felt safe and loved, to be sure, but I found myself frightened to speak (I who drove my mother near to madness with my constant questions and stories) and so the two of us would sit and eat in perfect silence and wait for my mother and father and my brother and maybe an aunt or uncle to come downstairs. Silence was grandfather’s language. Since grandma had died, he’d become fluent in it.
The second day on the island I explored the interior, looking for some sign of the orchard’s current owner. I had come to the conclusion that such a person must exist and live nearby, for the orchard was too well tended. It was possible, of course, that this caretaker lived on another island and came over frequently to work in the orchard, but I found that less likely. I found no sign of anybody, though, and mostly ended up lost in the more heavily vegetated areas until at last I found my way back to the apple trees. (I finally realized I could follow my own tracks which my feet had left impressed in the soft and muddy earth, like ghostly reminders of my presence). There I caught a glimpse of somebody walking through the orchard, but when I blinked they were gone, and though I spent the rest of the day hunting I saw no further trace of them.
That night I was restless and could not fully sleep. A voice not unlike my mother’s called my name, asked me to return, calling me home as though I had been out playing and now it was time for dinner. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, but the voice did not vanish into some half-forgotten dream as I expected. Instead it grew louder and beckoned me onward, back towards the beach, and at that moment I knew somehow that if I went back there to the place where I had first come ashore I would find the owner of that voice and leave this place, and the thought excited me, of being back in my room with my cuddly blankets and pillows, and the smells of home, and all of this far away.
I was walking that way with an eager pace when I glimpsed it, through the trees. The old farmhouse and there, on the back steps, the man himself standing perfectly, peacefully still and holding a plate with a slice of apple pie. Behind me the woman’s voice still beckoned, but from my grandfather there was no sound at all. He did not hold out the plate, but I knew it was for me.
It took only a few heavy moments to make my choice. I could have turned to throw an apology over my shoulder toward the beach, but I was afraid to speak. As I mounted the steps to the farmhouse porch, the owner of the orchard winked at me and laid his hand upon my head, and then we went inside together saying not a word, and in that moment, in this moment, I think it all through again and again. Grandfather takes my hand. I am at peace. The rest is silence.
My grandfather had an apple orchard when I was just a boy, and when we’d go to visit him I would walk between the trees until I could no longer see the house, pretending I had vanished fully into some other realm made of bark, and branches, and ripening fruit. When they were in season, the apples were everywhere and could be summoned at will by the simple reach of my hand. I walked every corner and row of that orchard, and came to know it as well as I knew my childhood bedroom or the yard behind my house.
Which is why I was somewhat surprised when I pulled myself from the ocean on that deserted island and found my grandfather’s orchard there. Each tree was placed exactly as I remembered, and walking amongst them I felt as though the big farmhouse and the dusty driveway were just out of view, and that if I only kept walking I would see them both, and the car my parents had driven there, and maybe my grandfather himself waving from the doorway with a fresh slice of apple pie on a plate. It wasn’t so, of course. Outside of the orchard it was just a regular tropical island, and there were no apples growing on trees, just a few coconuts here or there. I walked the whole circumference of the island, testing the borders of my new realm, and made the circuit in less than a day. I saw no sign of human life, only the chittering sound of monkeys now and then and lots of bugs. I supped on apples in the evening and wondered at my good fortune. The climate was too hot for apple trees to thrive, but there they were, and I was grateful since I never really cared for coconuts.
I thought of my grandfather. He must have been here before me, maybe many years before, for only he could have recreated his old orchard so exactly down to the last detail. But he had died years before, when I was sixteen or seventeen, and hadn’t exactly been mobile for many years before that, so these trees must have been planted at least thirty or forty years before the day I washed up on their shore. It seemed improbable. The trees looked young and well-tended, though there was not a soul in sight. There was a mystery in it that seemed to overwhelm all my fears for my predicament.
Grandpa had been a quiet man with rough hands, always working. When we stayed over at his house, I would come downstairs to the kitchen early and find him brewing coffee and starting some breakfast and watching dawn come in through the kitchen window. Saying nothing, he would fix a small cup for me and scramble some eggs, handing them over on a plate with a wink and then a quick, absentminded pat on the head. I didn’t much care for eggs back home, but at grandfather’s house I ate every bite. The eggs tasted old, gritty, like a recipe from another time. They were just scrambled eggs, though, and I never understood how eating them could make me feel like I had been transported to some long-gone decade.
To say I was afraid of him wouldn’t be exactly wrong, but it wouldn’t be exactly right either, for he was unknowable and distant, and I stood in awe of all he had seen and done and knew how to do and how little he spoke of it all. When he was around, I felt safe and loved, to be sure, but I found myself frightened to speak (I who drove my mother near to madness with my constant questions and stories) and so the two of us would sit and eat in perfect silence and wait for my mother and father and my brother and maybe an aunt or uncle to come downstairs. Silence was grandfather’s language. Since grandma had died, he’d become fluent in it.
The second day on the island I explored the interior, looking for some sign of the orchard’s current owner. I had come to the conclusion that such a person must exist and live nearby, for the orchard was too well tended. It was possible, of course, that this caretaker lived on another island and came over frequently to work in the orchard, but I found that less likely. I found no sign of anybody, though, and mostly ended up lost in the more heavily vegetated areas until at last I found my way back to the apple trees. (I finally realized I could follow my own tracks which my feet had left impressed in the soft and muddy earth, like ghostly reminders of my presence). There I caught a glimpse of somebody walking through the orchard, but when I blinked they were gone, and though I spent the rest of the day hunting I saw no further trace of them.
That night I was restless and could not fully sleep. A voice not unlike my mother’s called my name, asked me to return, calling me home as though I had been out playing and now it was time for dinner. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, but the voice did not vanish into some half-forgotten dream as I expected. Instead it grew louder and beckoned me onward, back towards the beach, and at that moment I knew somehow that if I went back there to the place where I had first come ashore I would find the owner of that voice and leave this place, and the thought excited me, of being back in my room with my cuddly blankets and pillows, and the smells of home, and all of this far away.
I was walking that way with an eager pace when I glimpsed it, through the trees. The old farmhouse and there, on the back steps, the man himself standing perfectly, peacefully still and holding a plate with a slice of apple pie. Behind me the woman’s voice still beckoned, but from my grandfather there was no sound at all. He did not hold out the plate, but I knew it was for me.
It took only a few heavy moments to make my choice. I could have turned to throw an apology over my shoulder toward the beach, but I was afraid to speak. As I mounted the steps to the farmhouse porch, the owner of the orchard winked at me and laid his hand upon my head, and then we went inside together saying not a word, and in that moment, in this moment, I think it all through again and again. Grandfather takes my hand. I am at peace. The rest is silence.
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