Ah Friday, how did the week fly by so fast. It felt like slow going for most of the week then poof! here we are landed on Friday. It feels like a day was stolen when I wasn’t looking. But unless there is a time thief running around, I suppose it wasn’t. either way we have the Friday morning writing prompt to get stuck into. Everyone ready? Excellent. Then let’s go.
Okay I kind of wonder about Stacy and what happened to her. I suspect that if I did find out I’d either end up stretching this prompt out and filling in the details making this prompt a lot longer or that this would be a prelude and the story would start with Stacy. Something to think about later I suppose.
Friday, January, 14th: It was the first year the apple tree blossomed.
It was the first year the apple tree blossomed. In truth it took everyone in the house by surprise. The white and pink flowers seemed out of place against the backdrop of dark pine and blue gray spruce. At first no one could think of what it was. Nearly everyone thought it was some sort of trash blown in from the highway and caught in the surrounding trees at the back of the property. Gerald even took a garbage bag with him when he went out, grumbling about the highway litter, to investigate. He returned to the house with an empty garbage bag and a face full of wonder as he stared at the loose petals in his hand.
“I think it’s an apple tree,” he said. His voice held a bit of wonder.
One by one everyone in the house went out to look at the apple tree, to marvel and wonder at its very existence. At first no one could figure out how it got there. Ideas were tossed about and everything from an apple core being chucked out of a passing car to Aliens was suggested. None of the answers seemed quite right. Finally Marvin hazarded a guess. He kept his voice light, casual, carefully using the same tones in which he earlier suggested an alien agricultural experiment. It was only the stiffness in his neck and shoulders that made the comment seem less than casual.
“Didn’t Stacy eat apples out there while she read sometimes,” he said. “Perhaps a seed fell.”
At first there was silence. It wasn’t a quiet kind of silence. It was the kind of silence where all in the room were afraid to breath into lest their breath be construed as commentary. Stacy was not mentioned. Ever. It was the unspoken rule of the house. Marvin knew it as well as the rest of us. Eyes shifted as glances were exchanged. Only Lucas kept still his eyes firmly fixed on the book he held in his lap.
“Perhaps,” Lucas replied into that weighted silence. With that one word others were free to breath. No further thoughts on the apple tree were stated. No more questions and certainly no more mention of Stacy. Still from then on everyone thought of the tree as Stacy’s tree and watched it’s growth with anticipatory progress.
The tree flowered and all in the house watched the flower petals dancing in the light breezes that caused the trees around it to shiver. They watched from separate rooms of course, no one admitting to any of the others that they paid Stacy’s tree any attention. To talk about it became as silently forbidden as Stacy was herself. On the day the wind took most of the flower blossoms from the branches a heavy sadness filled the air. Then the small apples began to grow where the blossoms once stood. Through the warm days the apples grew, slowly but surely.
As summer’s heat began to fade and autumnal weather arrived, the apples began to ripen and thoughts of fully ripe apples filled everyone’s mind. Again it wasn’t talked about but Marvin took down the dehydrator and readied it for apple slices and Gerald began dusting off the canning equipment for apple sauce making and storage. No one discussed it, but everyone prepared. Lucas was the only one who didn’t seem to notice the growing apples, their shiny red skins almost glowing against the back drop of deeper green. As the time for harvesting the apples drew near, everyone began to wonder what would happen when the apples needed to be brought in.
In the end, the apples were harvested silently a basket at a time. Marvin nipped out in the night and in the morning all woke up to find apple slices drying in the dehydrator, later to be stashed away in the pantry. They were eaten, although no one was seen to do so and no one commented on them. Gerald took his own basket and in the morning all found a large cauldron of apple sauce slowly bubbling away on the store top. All ignored it as though it wasn’t there.
Ten til Midnight 