Once there was a village in a faraway land.
The people in the village had an unusual practice -
Every time a baby was born, its parents would 
plant an apple tree.

               .   .   .
 
   The young tender shoots poking through the earth -
     The baby taking its first tentative steps -
   The sapling's branches unfurling to the sky -
     The child jumping and running about -
   The apple blossoms opening to the sun -
     The youth's first taste of...

                .   .   .
            
Each villager took special care of their own tree,
and each felt personal pride in the fruit that it bore.

Every fall, after the apples were ripe enough 
for harvesting, there was a celebration.
It was a time of giving and receiving.
Care was taken that each apple given 
was matched by one of equal value, so that
there was no embarrassment on either side.

Now, in the village, there were two children.

The boy was cheerful and had many friends.
His apple tree produced many apples.
The apples were not particularly large,
nor were they round and perfect -
neither were they shiny and red,
nor were they particularly sweet.
But he gave them away nevertheless.
And he received many in return.

The girl was quiet and shy.
She had only one apple on her tree.
But it was the most golden,
most large, most fragrant and 
most perfect apple in the entire village.

After the celebration, the boy 
matter-of-factly gave the girl
one of his extra apples. 

The shy girl had never received any
apples before.  And she responded
the only way she knew how to.
She took her one and only apple
and gave it in return.

The boy suddenly realised
the magnitude of what she had done.
And he realised that there was no way
for him to accept the gift.
He had only given away his extra apples,
but the other had given all that she had.

Yet, how could he refuse her gift?

So he took it.
But silently inside, 
he made a promise to himself:
He would grow the best apple he could
and the following year, 
he would give it to the girl.
That would remove his sense of indebtedness.

The months passed and it was harvest time again.
Yet, there was no apple on his tree that
was large enough, nor red enough, nor shiny enough
for him to give her.
And so he decided to wait until the next year.

And then the next...

The passing years increased his frustration
as he was not able to reciprocate the gift
of the golden apple.

Perhaps he should not have accepted 
her apple in the first place.

His tree withered and aged,
prematurely worn out 
by the unnatural efforts exerted  
to make it produce what it could not.


As for her tree, it continued to blossom every year.  


But it never produced any apples again.



                                  Jonathan Koh
                                  October 15, 1997.