Johnny Appleseed

The last tree I planted was on the California shoreline.  I put the seed under a few inches of dirt, and then I went to travel the world.  All I had my empty bag still on my shoulder, promising something I could no longer supply.  Everywhere I’d go, people would ask me to plant a tree, and I’d say—‘Sorry, I’m out of seeds,’ and I’d see the disappointment in their eyes.  Out of seeds?  Aren’t you Johnny—‘Yes,’ I’d say, ‘I am, or…I used to be.  I’m not sure who I am anymore.’  Then, they’d walk away from me, and I’d go find a spot of land to sit on until the wind whipped up, and the moon came out, and the path before me was clear.  Go here, Johnny, go there, Johnny—What did you forget?  You forgot your breadcrumbs.  You forgot to leave something behind you.  And then…it happened.  A circle.  I found myself at the first tree I ever planted, in an orchard, in Massachusetts.  It was a crisp autumn day, and two children were apple-picking with their parents.  I watched them and thought—Where are my children?  Who have I ever picked apples with besides myself?  Then one of the children noticed me and pointed me out to their parents, fear circling the drains of their eyes.  I was shocked.  No child had ever looked at me with fear before.  It was only then that I realized I had grown a beard, that my skin had wrinkled, and my hair had gone grey.  I was old.  I was an old man.  When did that happen?  And how?  I had never aged.  But that was before I planted my last tree.  I started running.  I ran, and I ran—the whimpering of frightened children echoing behind me—I ran until I reached the spot where I had planted that final apple tree.  I wanted to sit under it—under the last thing that I would ever bring to being—and I wanted to die there—that was where I wanted to join the earth and be absorbed into the tree, the roots, the branches...

But when I got there…

Nothing.

No tree.  Just a convenience store.  A gas station.  Right on the water.  Right on the edge of everything.  Slurpees and hot dogs.  I was…worse than dead.  I was…It was as if I had never existed at all.  And all the other trees and all those apples meant nothing.  They were vacant poems.  They were the past, where I wanted to die.  This was the future.  Who the hell would want to die in the future?  You want to die in the middle of your last memory.  Your last best memory.  And then I saw her.

Paula—with Babe behind her, holding an umbrella over her head to shield her from the California sun.  ‘It’s all right,’ she said to me, as I fell to my knees in front of her, unable to cry tears, because even my tear ducts were irrelevant.  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, as she put her hands on my shoulders, as she brought me back to my feet, ‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘I have a place for you.  I have somewhere you can go.’  And then she brought me here.  And she made me young again.  And she made me feel special.  And this is where I’ve been ever since.  And I’m still not Johnny Appleseed, but I’m somebody.  And maybe one day I’ll figure out who that is.