//The Golden Fruit //

Namu wiped his spectacle glasses

He tried to clean the thick glasses with his dirt soaked cloth. He wanted it clean to have a cear vision over the fruit he wanted to see for these long years. It was the fruit of his dream since his childhood, since the time the enchanting man whispered it into his ear that this would be his only his achievement in life!

 

            That was the time when he last saw him inside his cottage, in front of a sampling of waist height in an evening. He found him kneeling before the plant in the evening when he accidentally entered the outlines of the bush made fence. He stood there, behind him as a silhouette whose eyes were fixed on the body of the skinny man.

           

            ‘get the ball’ someone shouted from behind bringing him to senses that let him aware  of his situation that he came for the ball  that merely rolled into his compound from the field whole they were playing. He came here with his investigating eyes to search the ball that sneaked itself somewhere in the darkness.

            He saw the outline of the man’s skin body in the thin darkness, where he kept standing behind him with his sweeping eyes fixed on him. He appeared to him like a clay mound heaved under a small tree below which he found the ball going to be hidden under the prevailing darkness of his shadow and the encircling darkness around him. He made himself fixed behind the man, waiting him to get up from his prayer. ‘Get the ball, we are not playing anymore. Fetch it, we are going’ shouted a voice from his playing area. He turned his look to give a way of his helplessness to his friends and failed as he found his face struggling against surrounded thick evening to make a show to his expressions.

 ‘Here is the ball’, a sound passed through him. A shivered ran across the corners of his body. He felt fear in him. A will to escape out of the situation compelled to pick up the ball from the hand of this unknown man in front of him before a quick escaping run. He ran off quickly from the place so as to make himself reached his home.

             The first work he did after reaching home was pondering over the situation he underwent recently. He could not make out for why the situation was a matter to him. It was something strange for him although the things were normal. Yet he felt an undercurrent went through him mildly. He thought over the matter on and on and never could reach any pointy of conclusion where he could have satisfied himself. Somehow he could get himself out of this chain of thoughts and diverted himself towards some other problems until the midnight.

             He didn’t know the night was trying to open of the clues to the answers to the sets of questions he had been through and through since the time he met this man. As the midnight reached his laid body on the bed it unveiled the mystery in his sleep. It was in the form of a dream that reached him.

            In the dream he saw the face of the man reaching him out of an aura. Initially he saw a blaze of light radiated to which he couldn’t resist. He closed his eyes in the dream itself save his eyes from the halogen or some such kind. He did so but couldn’t continue closing the eyes for a long time fearing that the light might have something more than what he had feared. He opened his eyes and saw a man in front of him. He was the same man whom he met during the last evening.

             Hardly had he known of him. He had heard people talking about him. To them he was a saint; a man who had already lived his life for thousand years, who has obtained the auspicious powers which had let him lived these last thousand years. People were also saying that the man has his life hidden inside this plant which, though looks like a small sapling, has also the life of thousand years. It was a different kind of tree which was not found anywhere on earth. Some whispered too it was a tree from heaven.

            The fuss and gossips were frequently resounding inside him and had altogether formed a peculiar image of the man and the tree in him. But he could not make out why these elements were the attractions for him and why he was dragged towards the objects on and on, until the evening he saw the man accidentally. He never imagined that he would be meeting him at a situation quite unknown to him. His genuine fear would not have allowed him for the situation. Even he never expected a dream. But he had it

 

            He met the man in that dream from out of an aura or something until the man said him. The man nearing him said, - Don’t be afraid my child. I came for you as I have something very important to say to you for which I have been waiting since a long time. It is about the plant. The plant you saw in the evening is not an ordinary plant. I have been waiting here to say this to you for years and years. This is a tree that bears golden fruit.

 

            Namu became surprised in his dreams. The dream gave him the touch of reality. He had no choice. He listened this man who was saying him about the secrets of the plant. He was saying, - the tree came up here as one of the seeds fell off the heaven once long ago. After a rain it germinated. A few leaves followed. And it started growing. When I was a child I also dreamed about its origin. I was asked to take care of as I was the only soul ten who could have seen the yield.  I saw also told about the place of the plant and take care of it. I did it. I spent my whole life in a hope to see the golden fruit but failed. I was told then that I had to continue hoping until my successor arrives one day. This evening I saw you. You resembled with the exact picture I was described then of my successor. So my child, now it’s your turn. May be I failed to experience life properly for which I was deprived of seeing the fruit on the stem. From tomorrow on wards, the plant would be yours.

 

            Saying so, the man vanished.

 

            Namu winked for a moment after the man went in Namu’s last dream... He felt fear and mild current shrilling his body. The throbs continued for another few moments... Then laid him to a following slumber till morning when he woke up and emerged in his regular routine. He had lost the last dream until his evening play time.

 

            When the friends called him to go for the game he remembered the dream he saw last night. That too led his way to give clarity to his problems. He was sincerely trying to comprehend about his recent future while his movement directing him for the plant driven by an inner force. The surprise was ahead of him.

            He saw the absence of the man and his cottage on the place where exactly he saw the man last evening before the plant. Even he saw the plant had grown up a few meters taller than the size he saw it last evening.

             He returned back for the place in anxiety and fear.

 The next day same thing happened to him. He trailed himself for the plant to avoid his curiosity and saw the same thing. The plant has grown up though there was no sign of the man he saw there. This thing continued. He could not resist himself from going to the place to read about the new changes that could have occurred to the place or plant. Every day he saw the quick growth of the plant in the absolute absence of the man. He gradually lost all his fear and became acquainted with the situation.

            The kept on growing along with the growth of Namu.

  In due course of time Namu took himself as the heir of the tree and took care of the plant by watering and guarding it. The tree became tall and taller to a height that nobody could have tried to bring damage to its huge trunk... But no fruit came to the tree. Namu also grew up through the steps of time. He underwent his youth and man hood under its trunk... And lost his years of maturity awaiting the golden fruit.

             A time came when Namu had no work. He left working due to his post matured age. He only had a single work left-to see the tree when it would show him a fruit. During his last tenure of life he worked hard to see the day when the tree would have brought a smile to his face by showing a fruit. But the tree didn’t bring him any fruit.

            He became desperate due to his thought that his time was slipping away from him. His anxiety compelled him to scold the tree one day. He scolded the tree for why it is proving itself barren! Why and what mistake of him had been the reason of the tree’s non yielding attitude. He scolded and chided. Then cried before the tree. He cried as an old father wants the child to show him his ability to earn. He cried and slept under it being tired.

             No sooner than he felt the coolness of the breeze to help his slumber he heard the voice from the tree to wake up. He distinctly heard that the tree had voiced to see it. He woke up definitely but couldn’t know whether he was in the realm of a reality or a dream. He thought probably it that in the dream he woke up. Next moment he went on to rectify him saying that it was the reality indeed where he dropped his slumber.

 

            In between the dilemma he woke up and lifted his neck upward towards the sky where he could see the end top of the tree. His age old eyes initially didn’t allow him to stretch his look to the far end of the top. It was huge and tall. He tried hard to adjust his eye muscles bringing several more wrinkles to his eyes corners so that he could have a clear look at the other end of it.

             After his painful exercised he could see a dazzle atop the tree.

 He tried to convince himself that it was the golden fruit he had seen in actuality. But his non cooperating eyes didn’t help him to get a firm hold over his thought. He remained unfixed in between vision and thoughts. Hence he decided to climb to the top where he could be confirmed of   the tree’s first yield.

 

            He started to climb. Despite of his painful weight of the body, despite of the helpless state of his limbs, he continued climbing...

            He tried hard to get up through the thick branches and climb up. Every moment a fear was touching him that he might have a great fall. After climbing for an hour or so he felt tired and rested on a branch from where he had a glance over the patch of meadow from where he started his journey. He couldn’t see the patch clearly. He was panting and feeling restless, yet his desire to reach and see the golden fruit was becoming stronger and firm in him. He continued again climbing up over the branches... He climbed and climbed and felt reaching nearer the fruit.

            He became happy. A smile puffed off his mouth after seeing the glow of the fruit. He smiled again.

                         

                        That was the last time he was seen on earth.