A new story now and then by Kate Bryant
(C) 2009

A young woman and a young man peer into the chain-link fence to catch a glimpse of the arboreal mystery. The army of guards and researchers make it very well impossible, but every once in a while, inside the compound, one—if one is patient and lucky enough—can catch said glimpse of a dwarf and wrinkled tree bearing dull green grey fruit of a most peculiar shape—round with several banana-shaped nodules, not unlike a human hand. One bite of this strange fruit, it is rumoured, and the aging process screeches back to a death-defying crawl, or “creep.” That’s the rumour anyway.

The news agencies keep it conservative. Mice on a diet of daily fruit rations seem to be living, on average, two months longer than control mice. Except for the ones that don’t. A twenty-seven-year-old chimpanzee on an exclusive diet of the anti-aging fruit since its discovery twelve years ago has stopped aging completely.

The young woman and man—a couple—read these reports ravenously. Both the skeptically conservative and the wildly imaginative. They, like every other single person on the planet, want a fruit for themselves. And their chance of getting one is two in the population of the world. There is no orchard of these fruit trees with a smiling farmer in overalls filling up barrels by the bushel and sending them off to market. Only this single tree. Bearing its strange, completely sterile fruit. Origins yet to be determined.

The tree receives the full scrutiny of scores of botanists and researchers, but they search in vain. A nine-year-old discovered the tree on the outlying land of her parents’ property. Tasted it under a friend’s dare. The parents slowly grew aware of something being wrong when the child failed to outgrow her clothes for two consecutive years. Apparently she had been secretly eating the fruit with reckless abandon since she had discovered it. The study of her growth (or lack thereof) was cut short however, when a car struck her dead in a Walmart parking lot.

Researchers daily run tests to discover the tree’s origins. Pore over meteorological studies searching for the possibility of an asteroid impact twelve years ago that may have lain some alien spore, seed, bulb. Still. Origins remained yet to be determined.

The following week, the young woman attends a small dinner party of her closest friends. After dinner, with the china whisked away, the host stands up. Flings back her dark waves, smuggles a mischievous laugh. “You will not believe what I have got my hands on.” Her accomplice enters, carrying, on a teak Dansk serving tray, a hairy greenish orb with six fingers.

Chairs fly back. The guests gasp, they swear, they exclaim disbelief. “NO WAY.” declares our young heroine. The accomplice sets down the tray.

“How the hell did you get that?”

“My father. One of the guys he golfs with owns one of the research stations…” she trails off. Slides a fine Wüsthof from the table. “I’m not sure exactly how this works.” She attempts to peel the hoary skin, but ends up spilling some of the flesh using this method. “Okay, this isn’t it. It’s like Jello pudding in there.”

“Do the knobby pieces break off?” wonders aloud an olive-skinned woman.

The host looks up, mentally counting the guests. Eight. “Maybe.” She saws off the fruit’s protrusions, careful to contain the custard. “Someone has to share the big piece with me.” Our heroine volunteers.

The other women huddle around to claim their respective shares. “Oh my god,” exhales a red-haired woman. “It’s divine!” The other women chime in their agreement. “Totally.” “Utter oo-mami.” “So good!” The guests linger, the wine runs dry, and the night sky outside stretches taut, threatening to leak light.

The next day, the young woman relays the novel experience to the young man. The young man feels a twinge of jealousy, but mostly, he feels happy vicariously. And now they have a source. Which is lucky. Because the young woman and her friends are soon going to need it. A few days later, the cravings begin. Clamorous, maddening, insatiable. Even more distressful, ignoring the cravings results in accelerated aging.

It seems that while researchers had exerted extensive energy studying the anti-aging effects of consuming the fruit, not until recently had anyone considered the effects of not consuming the fruit. How very unlucky for our young woman. And thus the black market explodes, no price being too much for a hopeful drop of this elixir. The father does not want to live with the weight of his daughter’s death on his hands. Nor that of her friends’.

Of course the tree could hardly produce fruit quickly enough to supply eight people with regular rations. Let alone the countless others who had unsuspectingly tried it. So it is only a matter of months before the young woman receives her last ration, the tree now completely barren with no signs of producing additional fruit—at least not anytime soon. The young man left a long time ago.

The no-longer-young woman and the no-longer-young host sit next to each other on the back porch steps at the host’s house. They have aged considerably. The host much less so. She keeps secret a stash of creep fruit in the shed behind her house. Unbeknownst to her, the no-longer-young woman already knows this.

“I’m sorry. Beyond words.” sheepishly confides the old host.

“I know.” replies the old woman. Hidden in her jacket pocket is a key to the shed. And the quick sharp blade of a Wüstof. “I am too.”

® 2009

It had come to pass that in the year 2098, in the last standing church of the last remaining archdiocese, the last ordained archbishop led his flock through one final sermon on this last day of the year. The bitter December air clung to their breaths as the parishioners huddled together into the first few rows and strained to hear the projected whispers of this humble octogenarian who was less fire-and-brimstone than tired-and-perhaps stoned. The powers that be had hesitated upon hire; his utter mediocrity could hardly attract the legions of worshippers they so desperately needed. But Barry Windhouse had somehow lucked out

Where once such a lackluster choice might have mobilized the Church to redirect their intentions, they could hardly object in 2062, as the bottom of the proverbial barrel was at last scraped clean—Barry Windhouse prevailed as the sole candidate in the running. Of three seminary graduates, he was the only one to rise in the ranks of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and achieve any status as a man of the cloth. He was, as many before him had oft been desperately clung to in historic or cinematic moments of despair, their last hope.

And in the time that Barry Windhouse had been ordained, the Church had undergone a seriously seismic shift. What was once a colossal bastion of power had been reduced to nothing more than a pitter patter of chatter. Religion anymore held such little influence in the home, the workplace, and even that former iron-gated shelter of tacit support, the government, that its gravitational pull among even the most devout was but a mere tendril .

Now the army of believers consisted of a handful of sandwich-boarded volunteers. Come in where it’s warm, the signs read. Free daily meals, they lured. What they did not say was, God is good! Salvation is at hand! What they further did not say was, This sandwich board is a last-ditch effort. We know you love your nano-bots and telecine phones more than you love God. Well, they definitely had more significant relationships with them anyway.

But inside the church, the warmth alternated with icy drafts. The meal consisted of a couple slices of bread with butter, a sip of chicken broth. The coffers and cupboards laid bare. Barry’s sermon rounded out the meager meal, nourished as well as it could—considering.

Finally, the last hymnal was sung. The last amen avowed. And the last of the parishioners filed out. A white-haired hen of sixty. She smiled softly at Barry. John and I always loved your sermons. We’re going to miss you. Miss this….She gestured inside the church. Barry nodded, reigning in his impatience. Of course, of course. It’s a sad day for all of us, Marilyn. It won’t be easy to fill the shoes of God, I mean, to find something to fill this void, that the church is going to leave behind. A place of worship is…His mind wandered. Well be careful going down those steps. Marilyn smiled and squeezed Barry’s hand sympathetically. Then miraculously, she was gone. Everybody was gone.

Barry Windhouse quickly shut the door behind him and headed toward the rectory. A cup of tea was what he needed. And maybe there was still a little bit of that lovely appler butter Sister Anne had brought back from her jaunt to the neighboring town. He put on a kettle of water. Salvaged a last hunk of bread, spotted the preserves in the back of the coldchest. Perfect, he concluded. Simple rewards were all he needed. He had served God to the best of his ability. Been a good man. Even suffered his aching joints at the pulpit for the last twenty years.

It was truly unfortunate, he ruminated over his tea, that in this turn of events, there was no one to follow in his footsteps. Their last hope. He sighed, knowing this was where he had failed. Could he have done more? No, he consoled, nothing short of a miracle. He set down his cup, wiped the crumbs from the corners of his mouth. He felt more exhausted today than he could ever remember. He thought about the snow drifting on the eaves, the chaste white night to come, quiet and blind. His eyelids felt unusally heavy, drooped, until finally Barry Windhouse could resist no longer and slipped off into the most peaceful slumber of his life.

®  2009