It isn’t easy being an apple, employed again and again as a deliverer of fairy tale poison, forbidden fruit, pressed into ciderhood, and baked alive inside a pie. Yet in the first fine summer of innocence, growing content upon a loving mother tree, there is no better life than that of an apple. Born from a flower into a cloud of buzzing bees, growing in the heat of a hot summer sun, ripening to cool autumn kisses, oh, there is a reason they taste so sweet.

Wait, no, that one’s tart! So tart!

“That’s right, you monster! Stay away from my babies!” said the apple tree, pelting down a rain of bruising fruit.

I tried to run but I slipped in a squish of rotten fruit, smearing myself with startled worms and brownish goop. I won’t soon forget the sound of her laughter as it shredded the last of my dignity.