The Arbor
For the Tree to live, someone had to die.
Most of us were willing to slit our throats for the Tree, but that wasn’t how things were done around here. We needed an outsider’s blood.
After a few hours, the leaves on the Tree started to wilt. Our children circled around it and kept it stable with their tears, but the Tree needed blood. As the sun went down we started to despair. Then we saw the headlights in the distance. The children stopped crying and started dancing.
We felt bad for our loss of faith. In all the years the Tree had always provided.
The car stopped twenty yards from the Tree. There were three people in it. One of them got out of the vehicle. He was lost. He saw us. He saw the knives in our hands. Then he knew how lost he was.
We chased him toward the Tree. We gave the Tree life. As the blood soaked in, the branches quickened with fruit.
They were screaming in the car, but they didn’t try to drive away. They were foolish outsiders. We gave them apples from the Tree. Then they understood everything. We had two more converts.
