The Avocado Tree

by Aaron J. Louie

There once was a very stern avocado farmer who had two sons. He would make rules so his boys would behave, for that is what his father had done before him. When they disobeyed him, he would punish them, for that is what his father had done before him. He had a modest farm with a modest orchard of avocado trees. In his spare time, he would make spectacular pieces of decorative furniture out of the wood of the avocado trees -- tables, chairs, toys, picture frames. They were all delicately inlaid with checkerboard patterns of wood. He would sell the furniture and the ripe green fruit of the avocado trees at the market on Sundays.

The greatest avocado tree on the far side of the orchard was nearly fifty feet tall, with many strong branches, which were slung low to the ground in great arcs. The father forbade his sons to climb the tree, fearing that they would damage the branches and harm the avocado harvest. But they feared not their father's avocado switch when the great tree called to them. When the wind would blow, the tree would gesture in the gale, welcoming the birds into the shelter of its glossy emerald leaves.

When they were young, the boys would steal off to the orchard while their father labored in his workshop. They would climb into the embrace of the tree, even though it was not allowed. From the highest point in the great tree's crown, they would gaze out across the fences and rooftops of their neighbors' houses and dream of the roads beyond the hills, which they could barely descry through the haze of summer. They would wrap their legs around the thick, smooth trunk of the tree and eat avocados until their stomachs hurt.

One day, the father was in his shop, sawing a log of avocado wood on a sawhorse. Suddenly, the sawhorse broke beneath the weight of the log, and the wood pinched the saw as it fell. The father called for his sons to help him pry the bent metal from the wood, but there was no answer. He left his workshop and went about the farm, calling out their names, but they did not reply.

Finally, he went out to the orchard and searched for his sons, growing more annoyed and angry with each step. He came to the foot of the great avocado tree and peered up into the branches. There he spied the feet of his sons dangling from the branches, fast asleep -- their stomachs full of fresh avocado. Gathering all his rage into his throat, he cried out to his sons to awaken and climb down from the tree, for it was forbidden of them to climb into its branches. His booming voice awoke the boys, and they shook with fear for the punishment that awaited them on the ground. They pleaded with the tree to protect them from their father's rage.

The father reached for the branches to climb into the tree to fetch his sons, but the tree heard the boys' cries and raised its branches above the father's head, just out of reach of his fingertips. With that, the father was overwhelmed with anger. He cursed his sons for disobeying him. He cursed the tree for protecting his sons. He threatened to chop down the tree at that very moment if it did not relent. The tree knew the boys would die if it fell, and it loved the boys very much, so it surrendered, fearing the worst as it did so. It lowered them to the ground slowly, whispering to them to be strong, but they sobbed great tears, which fell to the ground beneath the tree. The tears of the father's sons sank into the soil and reached the feathery roots of the great avocado tree. The tree drank deep the sorrow and regret of the little boys, and its roots were sickened with sadness ever after.

The father grabbed the boys by their hair before their feet could touch the ground dragged them out of the orchard and into the house and there punished them with much bitterness. The boys were banned from ever entering the orchard again, except to harvest the fruit of the trees for market. But they were not allowed to touch the great avocado tree. Its fruit went unharvested that year and every year afterwards, for the tree would not bear avocados as long as the boys stayed away.

The years passed, and the boys grew into young men and went away to school. They eventually forgot the tree, remembering it only in their dreams. Upon waking, they would forget its ripe fruit. They would forget its smooth, warm bark. They would only remember a hint of sadness for a lost friend, but could not put it into words. The tree grew ever more sad, for the father continued to deprive it of the touch of human hands. The birds no longer flew into its branches, and its leaves became sparse and dull.

The father's anger for the old tree was directed into his work, for he dove with more fervor into his woodwork, torturing the wood of other trees into beautiful inlaid patterns. His works would sell for great amounts at the market. As his art became more famous, he no longer harvested the avocados in his orchard, cutting down the trees only for their wood.

Eventually, the father grew old and bent from his work and no longer needed to carve wood or sell avocados to make a living, for his woodwork would sell at auctions for a year's wages, and he grew very rich. He began to cut down the trees one by one -- one a year, no longer severing single branches. But he started from the near end of the orchard, opposite the great avocado tree, which was, by now, sickly and withered. Still, it stood taller than all the trees of the orchard, for it saved a hope that the boys would return, watching over the tops of the neighbors' houses to the hills in the summer haze.

At last, the father's sons returned from university. They were grown men now and saw that their father had grown old and weak and had not the strength to bring the trees into his workshop. The father asked his sons to help him fell the last trees in the orchard. The boys consented and walked together ahead of their father across the barren field that once was the orchard. They came again to the foot of the great avocado tree.

The tree was consumed simultaneously with joy and regret at the sight of the avocado farmer's sons, but was now to weak to move its branches to welcome them. The boys looked at each other with a look of wonder, remembering faintly their long summer days with the great tree.

Then they reached out their hands and touched the great avocado tree. They touched its once strong trunk and stout branches, peering up through the dusky leaves to the bright sky above.

Suddenly, for just a moment, the tree felt young again. With the touch of the hands of its old friends, it shook with a laugh and burst into bloom. In an instant, its branches were again full of fruit, deep green and ripe. The leathery skin of the avocados shone in the sun. The boys reached into the branches of the tree and began to harvest the avocados, gathering them in great baskets. They vowed then to replant the orchard with this fruit as they climbed higher and higher into the crown of the tree. And as they reached the top to pluck the last avocado, where they could see above the rooftops of the neighbors' houses to the hills beyond, the tree sighed again in happiness and, with the boys again cradled in its embrace, died.

Just then, the father arrived at the foot of the great avocado tree with his saw and called up to his sons to climb down. They obeyed, knowing that, at last, the tree was dead, but would live on in the seeds they had harvested. When they reached the ground, the father began to cut down the tree with his saw. Its sharp teeth cut through the old tree's trunk easily, for its wood was aged and dry. The tree had breathed the last of its essence into the fruit that lay piled in the baskets at the boys' feet.

When the avocado farmer had at last cut through the trunk of the tree, he gave it a push in the direction of the wind, and it fell to the ground with a great thunder. Its stump was all that remained, covered in a blanket of sawdust.

The father and his sons stepped up to the stump, brushed away the dust, and gasped in surprise.

The stump was carved with a beautiful checkerboard pattern of inlaid wood.