Magical Apple Tree - Short Story

Once upon a time...

Down by the glittery river where the birds sung and the children played, grew the strong roots of the Magical Apple tree.

Every afternoon when the children came out to play the Magical Apple tree stood tall and proud; for it was the only tree that come rain or shine, it held its branches full of the sweetest red apples. 

Day after day the Magical Apple Tree allowed all the children to climb up and pick of its fruit to their hearts content. 

One day after the children ate as much as they could eat, the Magical Tree looked down to the ground and saw a little boy. This boy was much younger than all the other children and had small arms and legs that were not able to climb the tall thick trunk of the Apple tree.  After waiting for all the other boys and girls to leave, the Magical Apple Tree lowered one of its fruit filled branches and dropped in to the little boy’s small hands an apple that was as sweet as the sun kissed apples of the tallest branches. From that day on, the little boy and the Apple Tree became best friends. The little boy would come every day to the apple tree and every day the sweetest apple would fall directly in to his hands.

Many summers went by and the little boy grew in to a young man; but the friendship between the Magical Tree and the boy was so special that the Apple tree did not mind to lower his old branches and give from its fruit.

Autumn went by and then came winter, were the wind blew strong between the old branches of the Apple tree. That afternoon when the boy came for his juicy apple; the Magical Tree lowered its branches as it always did to drop one of its sweetest red apples when a gust of wind came and the apple fell on the floor. The boy picked up the apple to find that it was now bruised and he no longer wanted the fruit; so he threw the apple down to the edge of the river and walked away, leaving the Apple Tree sad and alone. Days went by, and then came spring and then summer. But the boy was nowhere to be seen.

All summer long the boy picked fruit from the other apple trees forgetting the days where he was too small to climb up on his own. Winter finally came and the cold striped the other trees from their leaves and fruits. The boy soon remembered the cold days where the Magical Tree lowered its branches and dropped down its sweet fruit. Soon his hunger led him back to where the Magical Tree once stood tall and proud.

The boy covered his face and started to weep when he realized what he had done. The magical tree was no longer the way he remembered it, with its strong fruit filled branches. In its place; now remained a wilted bare trunk that looked sad and this filled the boy with sorrow. As the boy dropped to his knees he remembered the apple that he once threw to the edge of the river and went searching for the last remaining fruit of the magical tree. There he found that the magical tree had left him a special gift. The apple he had once rejected had now bloomed in to a small green stem. 

The boy promised at that moment to never forget the generosity that the Magical Tree offered him all those years and worked hard to help protect and grow the stem in to a strong proud tree as his friend once was.

THE END.