Tending to the Fruit

Tending to the Fruit
by Quietfire156

Originally written for a competiton, the first and last lines ,in color, were given.

“To write is to expose, to the world, an echo of your thoughts. In that act, you both, set the sails of your hopes to be understood while dropping an anchor at your feet for fear of leaving that safety, that can only be found along the shores of your silence."

"Grandpa?"
The young boy having overheard the mumbled words of the old man, and without understanding kept pace along side, while strolling through the wine-apple orchard. The old man knowing his lament was heard but not received, gave the boy something he could handle. Reaching over he held down one of the trees branches.

"Here boy, have an apple."
The boy glanced back at him grinning.

"How about this one?"
Holding the branch before the boy.

"Well go on, you can reach it," With quiet smile, he encouraged him.
The boy never having seen apples hung from trees, would now learn to pluck one from its branches.

"Just pull on it gently," chuckling, "That's it.," and it was done.
The old man then instructed him, his dry bony fingers gripping one firmly.

"You got to rub it first, like this."
Then pressing it to his chest showed how it was to be done. The boy, with intent, watched and repeated every motion.

"That's right, on your sweater," he smiled. "Now that's a good lookin' apple. What do you think?"

"It's really big, Grandpa."
He bit. Juices spurted and drooled down the mouth of the boy. Then with mouth and cheeks full, he giggled openly and loudly into the quiet, crisp, chill of the early October air.

The orchard was plump with color, reds, greens, washes of orange, and yellows. The branches were all heavy in fruit. Folk around spoke of the orchard as having had the best yield it had seen for many years. The old man had outdone himself.

The trees swayed, sluggishly in the fall breeze. The man and the boy together admiring the fruits and all the beauty, as the leaves like petticoats, rustled in the breeze. Their branches laden with their tart-sweet load dropped an apple or two, here and there, with a hard bounce, which broke the intermittent quiet.

"Grandpa?"

"Yes boy."

He stood hands on hips proudly studying his labor. The man wore a favorite pair of ill fitting, sorely worn, blue-jeans held by suspenders. Beneath it, he sported with pride, a torn, mud brown, flannel shirt with dark buttons. His shoes showed no sign of having ever been polished or cleaned. Looking upon their cracks and binds one could draw similarities with the lines found on the old man's face. He'd say he was ordinary, yet many said, he was extra ordinary.

The old man and the boy took a moment, each to walk over to a couple of wooden chairs, damp and dusty which sat under a tree. The old man pulled his chair into the sun which climbed steadily into the sky, cleaving a path over the trees, on its way to deliver the day. The boy following him without grace, and dragging earth, he moved the second chair out of the shade, to sit along side and be seen with his grandfather.

"Grandpa?"
The man looked over to him with steady eyes and a smile of satisfaction. The boy sat posturing himself to sit like his grandfather, asked,

"Do you write a lot Grandpa? Grandma says you write a lot."

The old man hiccuped a chuckle, answering, "Yes, I guess I do."
The boy taking another bite, wondered aloud,

"Is it really hard to write Grandpa?"

The question swept his thoughts as he recalled, an unkempt pile of returned letters sitting upon his night table, The insincere offers of hope and best wishes in his next efforts to write. Taking a deep brooding breath he pause, resolved,

"It can be boy, It can be."

While the apple was still an amusement in the boy's eye, he yet desired to know more. It was mysterious, this writing. He loved the many stories told him, and now he thought, he might write his own. His curiosity rose like a wave approaching the shore. His questions mounted quickly one by one until...

"Whoa, Slow down boy, you've been bitten alright, I can see that."

The old man was warmed by the tide of the boys new interest. And in an unspoken moment, he saw himself as the boy, and he as his father who once spoke to him.

"Take care, for words were not to be trifled with." his father would say.

He'd warn him, "'"Words placed to page had often condemned the writer by binding the author with their meaning."'"
"One had to take care in the use of the written word."
"Once words were free to be read they could mark the writer with little indifference to weather he recounted fact, fiction, faith, or heresy."

The old man remembering the warnings of scrutiny, that he might be put asunder by any and all, who might gleam a discomforting word and felt he should be called to explain any perceived incorrectness. Yes, the old man recalled well the warnings he had received as a child beginning to play with “'“written words”'”.

Immediately seeing himself in the boy, there grew an instant, alarm, and he felt it his job to warn the child. Writing what was on one's mind carried risk! An urgency began to grow. "The child was… The child, was…, then poof, like magic, he paused and looked about, an all was fine. The boy smiling at him, had no fears. And suddenly he understood his own. Placing his hand gently upon his head, smiling, he would not pass them to the boy.

"Teach me to write a story grandpa." "I want to write about you and grandma."

No, he thought, he wouldn't fill his head with the fears which had kept him from speaking his piece.

"C'mon boy", he said with conviction.
"If you're gonna be a writer, then you will need to write something."

The old man rose-up from the chair, leaving it where it sat, calling to the boy to follow he headed for the house. The old man thinking assuredly, words themselves, would reveal their nature to the boy with time as long as he kept in mind that to write was to expose, to the world, an echo of his thoughts.