The Orange Tree

I live in an orchard, one full of all kinds of different fruit trees. Apple trees, mango trees, dragonfruit trees, pear trees, banana trees, and so on. Any kind of fruit tree you can imagine, I could find.

I didn’t plant the trees; I simply found them. I discovered them. Some of them I nurtured into larger trees, some I left to grow and die of their own will.

Each tree is different; from what kind of fruit they bear, to the color, to how big the fruit might become, to how sweet or sour they taste.

Of all these trees, the biggest one is an orange tree. This specific orange tree is truly beautiful, with many long branches covered in bright green leaves and a thick, brown trunk. A magnificent tree, one of the two very first trees I’d ever found in my orchard.

This tree is appealing to anyone who sees it, and it has provided me with the best shade of any tree in the orchard. As for this tree’s fruit, it only grows one orange at a time, but each orange is bright orange, filled to the brim with juices, and would grow as large as my hand.

However, when I would cut open that beautiful fruit and bite into a slice, it would fill my mouth with a horrible, bitter taste that would cling to my throat and tongue. There were times through the years it almost felt like it would choke the very life out of me. Even the days when it wasn’t foul, it was incredibly bland and tasteless, but it was far better a taste than the disgusting flavor I would find at other times.

This was the case the majority of the times I would eat it, causing me to become more and more weary of trying its fruit. Though, because the first few years of my life in the orchard had nearly no other bearing trees I could find, I had no choice but to eat the oranges when they would grow, no matter the taste. I would even starve myself for many days because of the fear of eating another foul orange, but I would finally succumb to the hunger and simply suffer the consequences. After a few years of this, and I finally began to see fruit growing from new trees I found, I finally gave up eating from the orange tree unless I absolutely had no other choice. I learned to just appreciate the tree’s wonderful shade.

Sadly, that wasn’t so easy. After all, the other trees weren’t always bearing fruit, and the orange tree still had each single one just hanging there, waiting for me.

Not only that, but I held out hope for that orange tree. Even as the years went on, I saw that tree as one of my very first. How could I just give up on it? Sure, I had plenty of other trees I could get fruit from now, but I continued to hope that that one tree would one day bear sweet fruit.

I even began trimming it and giving it special soil and fertilizers as I grew older and wiser towards how to nurture these trees. I did it every day even, all in hopes of helping it bear sweeter fruit.

And my hopes soon started to seem like a reality. One day, the fruit had a slight sweetness, even if very, very slightly. I was filled with excitement, so I worked even harder to help it continue. The sweetness stayed the next time, then the next time.

After a few times of getting these better oranges, I picked it once more and bit into a slice. To my shock, it was even more bitter than before. At least, it seemed more bitter. Perhaps it was the memory of such a taste and the unexpectedness of it that made it seem so much worse.

I gave up on it for a while, not touching a single one of the oranges and letting them fall from the branches and rot on the ground. Of course, I felt guilty giving up so easily, so after a few days, I tried again, but the bitterness stayed.

I continued to try for several years more. Now and again, I would get those better oranges, but they never lasted more than a short time and they never grew to be actually sweet oranges.

In the last couple years, I tasted some of the most bitter, unbearably foul oranges I had ever tasted. Even after all the work I put into that tree, it continued to disappoint me and even seemingly betray me. Even as I found thousands of other incredible fruit trees over the years with sweet fruit, some being the sweetest I’ve ever tasted, I still found myself continuously coming back to that large orange tree.

Perhaps it was because it was the only orange tree I had. The only one I ever found.

Perhaps I only longed for just one sweet orange. Just one.

No matter how it hurt, no matter how long it might take, I just needed to taste one single sweet orange. If I tasted just one, I could be happy with that tree. Maybe its life could finally be complete, its purpose fulfilled, knowing after all these years it could give me just one perfect fruit.

I held onto that hope, even as the bitterness began to dull my sense of taste. Some of the sweet fruit from the other trees began to lose its sweetness on my tongue because of those oranges. Even just the sight or thought of the tree filled me with that sickening taste, but I just couldn’t give up.

But, one day, that all changed.

One day, I bit into the slice and was hit by the most bitter taste yet. As if that wasn’t enough, the fruit was actually rotten and molding inside, causing me to become very sick.

This was the final straw. I had had enough. Never again would I be tempted by that wicked tree and it’s beauty. I was done with that tree, not even willing to sit under its cool shade. That tree’s beauty and shade could never be enough to make up for the pain and suffering it had caused me.

Finally, I realized that I didn’t need that tree. I didn’t owe that tree to eat its fruit, rather than letting the fruit fall to the ground and spoil at the tree’s roots.

No more would I be deceived, not when I had so many wonderful, sweet, plentiful trees I could eat from. Sure, they couldn’t always give much shade, especially compared to the orange tree, and they weren’t always very nice to look at, but I loved each one of those trees for trying.

What matters isn’t the way the tree looks or the shade it can give; it’s about the fruit it bears and the sweetness it can fill your life with.