It's morning and I'm drunk.

IT'S MORNING AND I'M DRUNK.

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Imagine you’re a tree. An apple tree. With a lot of love and care you bear your apples. Red, succulent apples, hanging indolently from your branches to be picked up. A tree bears apples for humans to consume. The apples themselves don’t make the tree’s nourishment; on the contrary, the tree saves up abundant energy from its own food reserves to make the apple. The apple is therefore a gift from the tree, from you, to your friend.

And what does a tree get in return for the apples it gifts without hesitation?

A fertile soil. Some water. Periodic cutting.

Love and care.

The same love and care the tree transferred through the apple to its friend, the human. A nourishment similar to what you give to your friend is only necessary to be returned to you.

Please imagine, imagine you are a tree. Imagine you bore red, succulent, beautiful apples. They are hanging peacefully from your protruding branches. Imagine that an eager hand reaches out to you, to your gift, the apple. You smile, in the way trees smile. You are exulted to share your love. You are ecstatic when you feel the slight pinch at the end of the stem when the apple, your child, is taken off you. You are, in a very simple way, so happy to see your friend savor your apple, that red, succulent apple that you bore with so much love and care.

Now, my dear friend, imagine what you would never imagine. That is, your friend walking away, after tossing the remnants of your gift to the ground. Call out to him – what is it? He can’t hear you? Of course he can’t. You’re a tree, you have no voice. All you can do is wait for him.

He comes back. You greet him joyously – he replies by taking another apple, another red, succulent apple.

He walks away.

Days pass. Actually, I believe you won’t even realize the amount of time passing. Every day becomes monotonous. He comes, he eats, he leaves. You are left with eroded soil, in a dry wasteland, your mane growing into one that is thick, brown, weak…

But you are still bearing apples. You have to. What other purpose might a tree have in this world?

You keep gifting him apples. He keeps walking away. And since you know no other way, it is what you will keep on doing.

But my dear friend, the time will come when you will have to stop. Your bark is darkening; it is of the color of a black, cold heart that knows no happiness. Your apples are drier that ever; its texture are becoming sandy, its redness turns into darkness like your sad, hazy heart.

The hand will stop reaching out to your children. They will instead hold a blade. Carve your body, they will. They will turn you into lumber, and bring you home. You might, for a moment, think that he is finally acknowledging you. You are jubilant for a very tiny moment, to imagine that he might keep you in his warm grasp.

However, my dear friend, I did not tell you to imagine such a thing.

The only thing left for you is the blazing, red fire he will throw you into. Red, iridescent flames will engulf you and turn you into nothing but coal. Coal as black as your empty, broken heart.

Now, stop imagining. You are not a tree – not really. Don’t incline to be one either.

Humans are humans for a very important reason.

They have a choice.

~Faty