The Plum Tree

“Is this not the true romantic feeling; not to desire to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping you.” -- Thomas Wolfe

For a nine-year-old, the boy was kept exceptionally busy. Today, the Protector and the Nurturer tasked him with tending to the pigs, fixing some chicken wire in the coop, and milking the goats. The authorities kept themselves busy trying to make a year-over-year increase in profit with the resources from the homestead. Despite the deluge of tasks and errands, the boy always carved out a few minutes to water the dormant plum tree.

At midday, the boy would take a glass of milk and some preserves from the storehouse, climb the hill on the eastern side of the homestead, and sit by the base of the tree. He loved how the leaves would turn into a deep shade of mauve in the spring. It was his favorite time to sit in its shade and take a moment to breathe through the anxieties of the day. He had constructed a comfortable seat near the stone inscription that read “Pour into me and I shall pour into you” at the base of the tree. The inscription always puzzled him; he couldn’t make heads or tails of it. After all this time he had stopped questioning it and just accepted that it was just someone’s ironic sense of humor as the tree never yielded any fruit.

As the days grew longer, he would spend the afternoons reading at the base of the tree. Every now and then, he would look up and comb over each branch to see if this was the year that the tree would bear fruit. Oh, how badly he wanted to try a plum from this tree. After all these years, he learned to accept its dormancy. He settled for the deep sense of tranquility it provided him which so starkly opposed the sounds of the incessant clucking of chickens or oinking of swine.

After watering the tree for the day, the boy started heading toward home and overheard a conversation the Protector and the Nurturer were having with some farmhands outside the barns. What he heard shocked him. Without thinking twice, the boy ran over to the authorities.

“No, please don’t do this. Please! It’s the only thing I care about!” begged the boy, between sniffles and tears.

The Protector and the Nurturer turned their heads in sync. They studied the boy for a moment and said, “No, absolutely not.”

The farmhands snickered at the boy’s desperation over a useless tree.

The Protector explained, “We must remove the tree from the property to make way for more lucrative endeavors.”

Then the Nurturer picked up immediately after. “The Protector has suggested sheep.”

The boy closed his heavy eyes and gently lowered his head.

That night the boy had a terrible nightmare of the tree being hauled off by the farmhands to be burnt in the furnaces far away from the homestead. He imagined the reflection of the fire in the Protector’s glassy eyes. He visualized the cold look on the Nurturer despite the glowing heat from the pieces of his precious plum tree, and he shuddered at the thought.

He was woken by a clap of thunder that sounded like a thousand percussionists’ cymbals crashing. He felt the house shaking and swiftly hid under his bed and covered his ears with his pillow. He could feel the vibrations from the percussive thunderclaps. The already howling wind picked up and tore the building apart like a pack of wolves devouring its midday meal. Wood and debris were flung into the air as the building slowly disintegrated around the boy.

When the boy regained consciousness, he was surprised to be alive. He had never experienced a storm like that before. After traversing the building rubble, he very quickly realized that he was completely alone. With the exception of the stone well, nearly everything had been destroyed. The farm hands’ quarters were a pile of sheet metal and splinters and the Protector and Nurturer were nowhere to be found.

The weather had turned also, the beams of the sun broke through the heavy clouds and he gazed eastward. The plum tree had survived. He walked to the tree and watered it as he normally did. He inspected the tree for any obvious signs of damage. Suddenly, his eyes widened incredulously; the tree started bearing fruit.

A plum fell into his hands. The boy stared at the fruit and thought of everyone and everything he lost the previous night. How could this have happened? He questioned a thought that crossed his mind, the eerie feeling that somehow the plum tree understood his frustration with his life and somehow delivered an escape.

Despite how much he had wished to escape his situation, he wished that the homestead and the town were back to the way they were . He took a bite of the plum and before he could savor the taste, the ground suddenly shook. The birds and the surviving livestock cried with anxiety.

The structures of his old town reappeared from the earth like a tree growing rapidly. The rubble and the devastated surroundings quickly grew over and turned into pleasant landscaping.

The boy was astounded. He was without words, and all he could communicate to the newly built town was an ear-to-ear grin on his face. He looked around and turned back to look at the plum tree, now understanding the inscription, “Pour into me, and I shall pour into you.”