The Wound

You watch the tree – rooted silent, branches bent under the weight of its fruit. It never asks who watches, or whether the soil deserves the gift. It bears until the branch bends, then surrenders to gravity. The tree keeps no ledger. Its roots draw from water it did not earn, from soil it did not build. It receives, and it gives, and never confuses the two. The fruit falls where it falls – on grateful hands, on barren stone, on creatures that will never know its name. The tree has no other law. It roots and rises and releases.

The Path

All your life you were taught that giving empties you. But the branch that bears the heaviest fruit grows the strongest wood. The branch that bears nothing withers. Each season of giving drives the roots deeper, towards water you never knew. The season comes when nothing remains but the core – hollowed by giving. Your branches ache. The sweetness in you has dried to salt. And in that exhaustion, a new hand rises, young and hungry, grasping for the last fruit, the one you kept as proof you still had something. Every branch in you wants to close. But your roots run deeper than you knew, driven down by all the giving that came before. You have nothing left. You open your grip anyway. The bark splits where the fruit tears free. What remains is hollow enough to shelter what passes through. The tree cannot choose where its fruit lands. Some fall on stone. Some are taken by hands that never say thanks. Some rot untouched. The tree feels the waste. It bears fruit anyway. Its vow belongs to the seed, never the soil.

The Shadow

The Barren Saint gave freely, no ledger and no hesitation. Her fruit fell on good soil, was received with thanks, and rotted anyway. She watched a young man eat from her branch for three years. She watched him grow strong. Watched him walk away without looking back. She gave more. It vanished too. She died still giving, her last fruit falling on ground that had already forgotten her name – still wondering if the fault was hers. It wasn't. Some soil is barren no matter what falls. She never learnt how to bear that truth. ⧫ The Judge of Orchards sees only unworthy soil. Why waste sweetness on a world that won't appreciate it? A neighbour came once, during the dry season. Stood beneath his branches. Looked up. He calculated: this man walked past three times without stopping. This man took fruit from lesser trees. Not yet, he told the branches. When someone worthy comes. A child came – too young to understand. A widow – too distracted by grief. A stranger – no history, no proof of worth. He hoards what falls and refuses to release what remains – fruit rotting where it hangs, the sweetness souring in his shade. He dies above the richest soil in the orchard – decades of fruit he judged unworthy, rotted into soil that will feed a forest he will never see. Around him, the trees that understood keep dropping their sweetness on the just and unjust alike, seeding what they will not live to see.

The Cut