The Day Apples Stopped Talking

Our story starts in the world of Apples, apples of all ages, apple families, friends and children laughing, chatting, singing, dancing, playing and doing everyday stuff everywhere. It was a bright and happy world, in the midst of a big garden and other trees, a bunch of flourishing apple trees.

Cautiously hidden from the human eyes and outside world by the covering of the leaves, the apples would not only move through the branches of the trees, but would also go and visit their friends’ trees by rolling down the trunk of their home-trees, rolling through the space between and then again rolling up their friends’ trees, simple.

You might say that, wait! I have seen plenty of apples, most of which I have eaten too, but apples don’t do that, they don’t roll away. Well, trust me my friend I would have said the same too, unless I knew about Mr. Apple. Young, enigmatic and energetic Mr. Apple was the most intelligent apple one has ever seen. He was “The Maker” in the Apple community, essentially a scientist, an innovator, an engineer, a thinker, a dreamer and a lot more in one small apple. One of his many wonderful creations was “AppleGo”, a potion which gave the apples the power to go from one place to another. You can say that their world was all perfect but then there were – “Birds” - the most terrible and life threatening enemy of the apple world. Every now and then flying flocks of mischievous birds used to attack the apple world and create disasters everywhere. Birds would punch and ruthlessly injure them with their pointy beaks. Apples used to scream and defenselessly run to save their lives and many a times they would fall from the trees and die. It was an everyday tragedy of the apple world and it grew dreadful day by day.

As the tension rose higher among the apple community, Chief Apple became concerned. One day, visibly worried, Chief Apple called Mr. Apple and said, “Mr. Apple, you have invented a great lot of magnificent things for the welfare of the apples. But now we are facing the single greatest problem in the apple history, which is threatening the very existence of the Apple World. If we do nothing about it, we will soon face extinction. Can you please do something about the Birds problem?” Mr. Apple considerately said, “It’s an honor Sir Apple, I will do what I can”. He bowed in respect and left. “Mother tree bless you my son” murmured the Chief.

Crafty Mr. Apple crafted a new potion called “AppleSwing” which helped the apples to fast-swing and evade the blade-beaks of flying and driving birds. He even created “AppleShield” from the barks of trees to protect the apples from punches and injuries. Apples wowed and praised his intellect. Chief Apple prophesied him “The Messiah” and declared “Mr. Apple is our savior. He will save us from the evil birds”. Hope again ran high in the apple world. But Mr. Apple was not content in his heart, as he could not think of a remedy for the situation where birds push, dismount and throw away the apples from high branches and thus killing them for fun. He kept on thinking and thinking and locked himself in his workshop at the uppermost peak of the topmost branch for days.

One afternoon while working in his workshop, from his window Mr. Apple noticed another window and a Man inside the window. The Man’s eyes were fixed at his home-tree and were immersed into some deep thoughts. Mr. Apple wondered who is that man and why is he living alone in the midst of this garden. He has never seen him around before. Inquisitive Mr. Apple took out his home made binoculars to observe The Man’s room more. He noted that The Man has lots of equipment in his house, not unlike his own workshop. Mr. Apple was thrilled. He had found another “Maker”, a “Maker” from The Man’s world.

A few days passed. Mr. Apple would spend hours of his day observing the fascinating Man and his actions. He noticed that The Man also spent a lot of time looking at the apple world while sitting beside his window or while wandering thoughtfully at the garden. Sometimes he used to sit down at the garden and write things at his notepad. Other times he would whisper and talk to himself. “Who is this Man? Is he mad? Does he really talk to himself? Or can he talk to the Air? Can he then talk to Apples too?” Mr. Apple wondered.

One day The Man was standing under the tree looking upwards absent-minded. Mr. Apple saw him below. “Is he really looking at me?” Mr. Apple questioned himself excitedly. His heart was pounding heavily in silence. Finally The Man broke the silence and said “Hello there, how are you today?”. Mr. Apple was overwhelmed by the friendliness of this stranger. “I am fine, thank you. I am Mr. Apple by the way” he replied. After a few seconds pause, The Man said “Hmm, what do you know my friend, possibilities are in the air. We are inhaling and exhaling possibilities with our nose every second. Hmm. See you tomorrow” and then walked away to his small house. Though the “possibilities” part went too high above the head of the Mr. Apple, but “who cares”, he thought, “Apples don’t have noses”. But this communication to his newly found strange human friend made our little apple so overjoyed that he told almost everyone in his home-tree and the neighboring trees. From that day onwards, they used to talk. Though Mr. Apple noticed that his friend was somewhat indifferent, sometimes talked gibberish, and did not always directly answer his questions but that could be attributed to his thoughtfulness and creative nature of a “Maker”, he thought and thus they were happy friends.

Next day afternoon, Mr. Apple saw that The Man was sitting under his home-tree, cheerfully eating something. He was about to greet his new friend but, suddenly, instead said to himself, “Wait, what is he eating? Is that a bird roast? Yes, indeed that is a roasted bird, Great!!!”. Suddenly the grandest of ideas electrified through him. A clearly ecstatic Apple Genius burst out from his workshop and ran madly through the branches and expressed to whoever he met “He eats birds, he eats birds”.

“Who dear? Who eats birds?” the apples were curious.

“My new friend, The Man who talks to me, he eats birds. If I can explain our sorrow to him, he will definitely help us and eat all the birds and we will be freed from our daily trouble” – explained Mr. Apple.

Words spread all over the Apple world about “The Man who eats Birds”. Chief Apple announced in a big Apple gathering, “Be courageous my friends. The Day of Fearless Freedom is but a few days away from us, for The Messiah has finally found The Mother Tree’s Angel who eats Birds.” It was then decided that Mr. Apple would talk to his new friend on the very next day. As planned, Mr. Apple kept waiting for his friend since early dawn of the next day. He waited and waited and finally just before the evening The Man came and sat under that tree. Mr. Apple said, “Hello friend, how are you today? I want to tell you something very important today”. The Man did not reply, nor even moved. May be he did not hear. Mr. Apple again shouted, “Hello friend”, but this time he himself could not hear his voice as thousands of terrified voices shouted simultaneously – “BIRDS!!!!!!!”

It was another invasion. Everybody ran for their lives. A big bird propelled fast towards Mr. Apple. He lost his balance and fell on The Man’s lap. Lifting Mr. Apple in front of his face, he frowned, looked intensely at him and said, “Tell me my friend. I know there is something you want to tell me. What is it? What can it be?”

Readily waiting for this chance, Mr. Apple told their entire story in one breath, how they were about to be extinct, how birds tortured them and killed them by pushing away from the branches every day. The Man listened to the full story very attentively. His face glowed brighter and brighter. And suddenly he jumped in joy, “I knew it, I knew it. I knew apples just don’t fall from trees without any reason”

“Yes, and you must help us my friend”, added Mr. Apple.

“Yes, I must tell this to everyone… Now” said The Man and started running. Mr. Apple shouted for the others, “Friends, wait for us. My friend and I will bring more men and together they will eat all our enemies…”

But the apples could not just stand there and wait, as it was the battle they were waiting to win for their entire lives. So, each one of them got down from their home-trees and started following The Man and Mr. Apple. The Man kept running and thousands of apples kept rolling behind him. Finally they reached a big hall, filled with hundreds of men and women. The Man stood at the center of the stage which was at the front of all the audiences.

And then The Man said, “Sorry I am late as I was in the middle of what can be termed as The Greatest Discovery of our time, I forgot about this seminar for a moment. But now that I am here, I would like you to meet someone.” He raised his hand and said, “Say Hi to this Apple”.

Now, Mr. Apple felt really embarrassed as the whole crowd was looking at him. Chief Apple and all other apples cheered him in appreciation “look his friend is making him a star”.

The Man continued, “I know all of you might be thinking what is so special about this little apple. Well, this is not just any ordinary apple but this one has led me to the ultimate truth, the question I was pondering for a very long time – Why does apples fall?”

“Yes, tell them my friend, tell them”, danced in joy Mr. Apple.

The entire apple world was excited and anxious for the next few words, as those would ring the battle bell against the birds.

But, then The Man said something very terribly wrong and upset everyone, everything. He said, “Apples fall due to gravity, a force by which earth pulls everything on it towards its center”

“What?” exclaimed apple one.

“What” exclaimed apple two.

“Gravy What?” exclaimed apple three.

“What?” exclaimed all the apples together.

The apples could not understand what he said, they went on like, “Wait, what? No no no, he is saying wrong… ” a disturbing chaos broke large among the apple crowd. Mr. Apple protested, “What are you saying my friend? Apples fall because of the birds, you know that, tell them the truth, tell everyone the truth…”

The Apples protested and shouted and cried. But none listened, none cared. Mr. Apple was devastated by the betrayal of his friend. All the joy was lost. The apples silently left the hall. They went back to their trees. Mr. Apple was so heartbroken that he stopped making things. Without “AppleGo”, apples stopped moving. They also strictly decided that humans are never to be trusted and hence no apple should ever speak to humans anymore.

Both the worlds remembered that day as it was a day of very significant happenings. But they remembered it very differently.

In the history of the human world, the day was written as “The Day Sir Isaac Newton discovered Gravity”, whereas in the history of the apple world, it was written as “The Day Apples Stopped Talking to humans" ...