The Burden Of The Plant People

Most children awake into the world to the sound of a heart monitor and a cooing mother. They feel her close to their frail body as the rope connecting them is severed like thread. Sometimes, they may even be held by a father, rough calloused hands tracing the outline of their wrinkled forehead as their eyes adjust to the fluorescent hospital lights. 

I am not most children. 

I was told I was born in a garden, like all the others since The Harvest. I was told I was the perfect Little Apple, and one day, I may even challenge one of The Withers. I honestly wonder if that is what they told everyone, or if I was unique, one shade greener (Of course I am not truly green.) Or one inch taller than my predecessors. But, perhaps, in the event of a drought, if my food becomes the very thing that is killing me, I begin to ponder, how far will a gardener go to get a symmetrical crop? 

Decades ago, Mankind unlocked the secret to our genetic code, hidden beneath our DNA and buried between seed and egg there lay a special type of organism called an A-3 Response, it was the exact copy of the fetus, only better, healthier. There was a catch though, one that sent world governments into a mad spiral attempting to work their way out of it, A-3's could only be harvested from the body by completely eradicating the host, or parent.  

Rumors spread like wildfire on a dry garden, many believed it was the work of a foreign government, and before long, the world went to war. When the dust finally settled, it became apparent that the only living thing from all the nuclear fallout were the A-3's (who were unaffected by radiation poisoning,) and those who hid in the fallout bunkers beneath the cities. The parents of the A-3 population were not so lucky, quickly being mummified or poisoned by the blast, the doctors in all major cities salvaged what they could, saving the “things” before they died from starvation of their deceased host. 

They gained a new name the day the world fell apart, “Apples.” 

Apples do not give live birth, instead, mothers and fathers bury themselves in the ground and let their spawn rise from the dirt... I did not get fertilized soil in one of the communities' hand-built greenhouses. My mother was a “Wither,” an Apple who became rogue and left the gardens to start her own life away from the endless orchards, spanning acres across the graveyards of homes and towers. 

My Mother did not pass giving birth to me; I am her and she is me. Eden, a Wither, long black hair, and dark green eyes haloing my pale, waxy skin.  

I feel her and her mother before her under my glucose-ridden skin, like the fingers to one of the puppets that the Old Children used to play with long before the Harvest. I feel them guiding me, drawing me deeper into the cavernous recesses of the crumbled towers that used to scrape the sky with their needlepoint antennae's. 

“Eden..., Eden...” 

I look around the dark lobby of the single-story building, vines have writhed and made their nests here like wasps in a nest, but the voice echoing across the many open hallways eludes my presence like a nightmarish phantom. I chase down the voice, it is calling us, all of us.  

Grandmother looks with her old eyes, at the cart before her granddaughter's figure. She knows something is very, fundamentally wrong. She closes her eyes and holds her daughter's hand to comfort her as “Eden” snatches a bright red orb from the cart. It has waxy skin, like a newborn Apple, and is just mushy enough to feel like she could crush it in one hand.  

I close my eyes and... 

A massive sound tears through the void, but unlike anything I had ever heard, this bang came with a feeling. It felt like fire roiling under my skin while ice froze my bones. I looked down into my hand, the red orb, once dry and glossy was now wet and sticky with bright red blood. 

“EDEN!” 

Grandmother clutched her hands tight to her chest as mother fell to the ground in tears. Grandmother refuses, rebuts every plea and cry to look, to intervene. Mother, in all her glory, watches as the piercing in her daughter's throat leaks more red juice. Mother knew as good as anybody, Withers do not survive.  But for the smallest amount of time, they learn how one may truly live. 

Attention all Apples 

A dangerous Wither was caught intending to destroy the orchards, greenhouses, and our pruned and moderated society. I do not think I need to stress the importance of how dangerous these “Things” are, for once they fall from the safety of our tree, they become a hazard to the rest of us. If you or someone you love has been exposed to the presence of and/or seen a Wither, understand one thing, you need not worry. They may be living, but it will not be for long. 

-Signed Governor Smith, In response to the Eden Wither pruning. 

The letter was written in bold red ink, an assault to the senses of the lovely Wither reading it. To her, this was not a message of a society under the conforming safety of a uniform government. This was a threat, one that promised a fate worse than death. Lon ago, there was a theory that people who were different faced a word called “discrimination.” Of course, The Wither never knew how one could fight a word. So, she began to realize that they contained behaviors in their letters and spaces. What made her and this “Eden” so different? The terrifying reality cut through her like a dagger.  

Nothing. 

She was a beautiful, intelligent young apple, who challenged societal norms by simply existing, and Governer Smith wanted girls like her gone. 

This became her burden, as she trudged through the muck of the swamps and the burning sand of the deserts. This became her burden, as she voyaged, to fall as far as she could off the tree.