The Pear Tree

One

Evan Cromwell put on a red tee shirt and a pair of basketball shorts, poured a cup of coffee and headed towards the front door to relax on the porch before work. On his way outside, the cat ran through his feet and the screen door slipped, knocking his coffee out of his hand. “Shit,” he exclaimed, looking at the broken mess staining the welcome mat. “That was my favorite cup.” He turned around to look for the cat when something dropped all the way from the top of a hemlock tree and hit the ground about two feet away from the porch with a heavy “thud.” Their differences forgotten, Evan and his cat leaned their heads forward together curiously. All the way down in the dirt, Evan discovered a large, ripe pear. He looked up at the top of the empty tree.

Two

“A big, fat pear fell out of my hemlock tree this morning, right in front of me. It was the strangest way to wake up. I've never even seen a pear tree anywhere near the house.”

Evan took his usual seat at the large table in the coffee shop they visited every morning before work. Glenn, donning a blue polo shirt, responded, “I've heard of a partridge in a pear tree, but never a pear in a pine tree. What the hell!” Laughter erupted. “Was it a whole pear? Did it have signs of animal molestation? Teeth marks?” Glenn pressed.

“Nothing. It was weird.”

“You know what’s interesting about that story,” said Zachary, Evan’s coworker of over ten years, looking up from the news. “Last night I was showing my wife the pears in our tree. She hadn’t noticed how many we’d gotten this summer, and when I showed her one tree, she asked to see the rest.” He pocketed his phone. “You know what else?” He asked, standing up to brave the coffee line. “Before bed last night, I read a chapter about the Trinity UFO incident, involving not a flying saucer, but, as the author put it, a ‘pear-shaped craft.’”

“No way,” said Evan with a laugh. “Hey, get me a pear salad while you’re up there.”

Three

Three days later, the same three men found themselves sitting at the same table at the same coffee shop, talking about the same thing.

“Listen. Even though I’ve never seen one single pear tree, there has to be one nearby,” said Evan, pouring raw sugar into the swirling black stew of his dark roast coffee. “I found another perfect pear less than five feet from the passenger door of my Subaru this morning, like it was just waiting there for me or something. I know pears are not uncommon in the South, but—”

“Not a rare pear, there?” Glen laughed at his own interruption, before biting into his breakfast sandwich.

Zachary dropped his newspaper. “I completely forgot about the pears! You’ll never believe this, but just last night my wife was looking out of our window and said ‘Go get me that pear,’ completely out of nowhere. I grabbed my pear picker and pulled down the pear for her."

“Twice in a row, then,” Evan said.

“Yes. Pears at our house at night. Mystery pears at your house the next morning. Twice in a row now.”

“Ya’ll make quite the pair...” said Glenn.

Four

As soon as he got home, Evan Cromwell set out under a neon sun determined to find the culprit. He walked down the back alley looking curiously at each individual tree, convinced the mystery would soon be solved despite finding nothing. The cookie-cutter houses all stood in conflict with the wild, messy green of the alley’s thick foliage. Lightning bugs, mosquitoes and dragonflies flew through air as thick as gravy around him.

More than halfway down, Evan approached back driveway of an old duplex. Something had caught his eye. A newly abandoned pile of junk lay fresh in the grass bordering the alley. He knelt by it in search of a bargain, tossing aside a stack of CDs to reveal a handmade doll, ripped in half by an animal, loose cotton creeping out into the grass like a fungus. Picking it up, compelled by the beautiful fabric the doll’s maker had chosen for its shirt, Evan suddenly sucked in his breath. He looked into the irises of the doll’s eyes glued onto two green felt pupils. Pear seeds. The doll’s face seemed to contort into a laugh. He dropped the doll, wiped his hands on his shorts vigorously, stood up and turned back towards his house.

Five

Evan turned off the light on his nightstand, rolled over on his side and closed his eyes. The quiet of night rapidly overtook his thoughts, putting him to sleep. Walls of cornflower blue were artfully decorated with framed prints and houseplants, the floor splotched periodically with piles of laundry and stacks of books. All was silent, save for the crescendoing footsteps of the cat entering slyly through the crack in the door. She stopped and turned her head before approaching the bed.

When Evan’s consciousness faded, the door was open for a second room to subtly appear within and overtop the same space. Two figures appeared standing with their backs against the wall. Their room was sparse: one table, one bare, dim lightbulb, and one door. They waited patiently in silence until the cat jumped up onto Evan's bed, knocking a baseball cap onto the hardwood floor with a “tap.” For these figures could not communicate without external soundwaves, having no means to create their own. The figure on the left, slightly larger and more knobbled than its counterpart, sucked the “tap” out of the air and deftly shaped a sentence out of it.

“A doll with pear seeds for eyes. Very methodical.”

The smaller figure nodded, waiting to respond until the other figure had finished. A single “plop” from the nearby bathroom faucet resounded and was quickly utilized. “And the way you plucked the pears plumb through his peer’s paradigm particularly pleased me,” the larger figure continued, using the newly plucked “plop,” making eye contact with the cat who had turned, purring, to watch them from the corner of the bed. “None of it would have been possible without the shared pears.”

“Isn’t it true, ‘Where two or more are gathered…?’” asked the smaller figure, after the “swish” and “hiss” of Evan’ deep breathing began to sound steadily throughout the room, finally providing them with an ample medium.

“Indeed. Once again, however, we must close with ‘almost.’”

“Surely not because he retreated? He’s close.”

“Nevermind that. I know a mental case when I see one. How long have I been your teacher?”

“Before screens, scrolling, or remote controlling; before Einstein opened the atomic door; long before Descartes’ angelic dream; far before gunpowder’s deadly smoke: it was the day Pythagoras found the path,” the student recited proudly to the sage.

“Very good. Now trust me: leave him be.”

“Let’s use books. A harmless passage here and there could pull him near.”

“Words! A slippery slope. Rely on feelings, sharp ones like nostalgia. Remember, books hold our names, and if he learns our names, he will have control over us. Do you loathe this plane that much?”

“And what of the pears?” asked the student earnestly, grabbing a particularly loud snore out of the air like a frisbee.

“What riddle is this? You don’t mean…”

“Yes. She of the third room.”

The sage sat silently for a few moments. “What about her? Nothing we ever do will ever change anything. It doesn’t matter whether he finds her or even bothers to learn her name at all.” The tone grew low and dark. “The course is set.”

“But S—”

“No, no. I’ve grown wary of this one. I’m done. If you must, you’re clever enough to keep working alone...just try not to drive him mad. Good evening.” The long, gangly figure stood up stiffly and walked out of their gray, dingy room and crossed through the bathroom door to explore the interior of the house.

Six

The lone light bulb in the room occupying that gray, sideways world grew brighter. The student stepped gingerly through the window glass closest to Evan Cromwell’s head out into the backyard. The grass was purple, the leaves of the trees were blood red, and the sky was a pale yellow. The branches of the bushes and the trees, as well as the blades of grass, bent and bowed up and down with life. “Would that this generation of humans could see the true Earth.” The student walked the path to the third room, passing easily through the wooden fence, moving down the alleyway, and stopping behind the abandoned apartment quadplex. "I won't give up yet." The longer the student stood still, arms outstretched, the more visible the door became. When it was full—a triangular structure of black and gray—the student knelt on the ground, traced a shape in the gravel dirt of the driveway, and sang an ancient, worn melody, at which the door opened without a sound.

Seven

Evan's car started and the radio came on. It was late Saturday morning. He was headed out to replace his favorite coffee cup. The doll’s face popped up unwelcome in his memory. Uneasy, he backed out of the driveway.

The shop door welcome bell clanged as Evan entered and headed towards the coffee mug display. He picked two similar mugs and held them out at arm’s length to compare them when a voice caught his attention. It had come from the cash register. A woman in a mustard colored sweater vest and white blouse was checking out with a smile. “Cathy Prichard?” Evan called over with a wave.

“Evan Cromwell. It's you!”

“My twelfth grade biology teacher. I can’t believe it!” Evan said, walking over with a grin. What have you been up to?”

“I’ve been meaning to look you up. When Ralph passed away, you know, I had to downsize. I was throwing a bunch of junk out, and found a card you gave me just before you graduated.” She began to dig through her beige leather purse.

“Really? I don’t even remember—”

“I thought that it was so sweet, I put it in my purse for safekeeping. And, you know, for whenever I started going down memory lane, or what have you.” She looked up at Evan, card in hand, with a smile that made him slightly uncomfortable, face framed within wild wisps of silver hair. He took the card to read it when his stomach sank. It was a generic “thank you” card, with corny, metallic decoration. It was an illustration of nothing other than a ripe, green pear.

Evan could feel the blood draining from his face as his ex-teacher continued talking. Eventually, she noticed that something was wrong and put the card back in her purse. “Well I’d better go. Evan Cromwell, it was so good to see you. I hope to run into you again soon.”

“Oh, uh, yes! So good to see you as well, Cathy. Sorry, lack of sleep.”

“Listen to me,” she said, taking both of his hands in hers. “You are a strong person.”

At this, a memory returned emerged from the final weeks of senior year. He had walked by her classroom and noticed her bending down to clean the floor with her hands, tears streaming down her face as she muttered to herself. Evan was too embarrassed to ask what had happened, but the sight of her like that made him give her that card before graduating.

In one moment, he realized everything on Earth that had to happen for this moment in the gift shop. For this bizarre string of recurring fruit. All of his fear gave way to a warm, liquid drip slowly awakening his body. A type of love he had never felt before. The love of life.

Eight

Early the next day, Sunday morning, Evan’s front door clicked shut, leaving the house empty and quiet. After a few moments, the sound of padded, crescendoing footsteps could be heard as the cat walked into the main living area and stopped. Its ears perked up slightly as it inspected the foreign items that had recently been left by the front door: a garden trowel, a bag of fertilizer, and a healthy young pear tree in a black plastic planter. She casually smelled their outer extremities before losing interest and heading towards the kitchen. Among other limitations, the cat was too hungry to notice three new books that had appeared on the counter: Permaculture in the Southern States; Trinity: The Best Kept Secret; and The Beginner’s Guide to Fruit and Vegetable Genetics. Fully sated, the cat sauntered back towards the bedroom before stopping at the front window. Through the glass, she saw something she had never seen before: her human owner, shovel in hand, digging in the dirt with a smile on his face.