Strange Fruit {Open}
Oct 24, 2011 21:12:16 GMT -5
Post by plantix on Oct 24, 2011 21:12:16 GMT -5
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Lotus Tears
It's that time of year where the trees bear another set of fruit. It's also the time of death for twenty-three selected children; The Hunger Games. It's only the first day of the games and yet nine have died in the blood bath already. No one from our district but still, that's nine lost lives of people who are only adolescents.
Even though these thoughts revel in the mind of our district's people, we are to work during this harvest time. The fields of fruit and vegetables have large fruits, and so do the trees. Among the plants that I study, fruit trees are what I'm best at tending to. I've always liked the array of colorful, unique and natural style of each trees flower. I also like watching each fruit grow and mature from the moment I say their first buds.
I look up to one of the peacekeepers that assign us jobs, and he just plainly gives me orders."You. In orchard 11. Tree number 4."The peacekeeper says clearly before handing me a sac for gathering the fruit. I simply give a short nod and proceed to the fruit trees I need to work in.
When I get to the trees I realize which field I'm put in. It's the cocoa trees I must climb today for their fruit. I've never been around these trees, but I've read a lot about them. For instance, they can grow up to fifteen meters in height and that they're not easy to climb. Their bark and branches are apparently too hard and too brittle to climb up easily like other trees.
I look at the organized forest of cocoa trees and then I spot the tree that I'm assigned to. When I put my hand on the bark of the tree, I confirm that what I read in the plant encyclopedia in our school library is correct; the cocoa tree is quite hard and rough, but it's very easy to peel right off. I really have to be careful when I climb this tree or I may fall quite the distance, like that time before.
When I start to climb the tree, I begin developing a strategy to climb up this tree as efficiently as possible. The branch I place my hand on is quite sturdy, so use it to help raise my body. My feet 'walk' up the trunk while my hands latch on to that sturdy branch, then I manage to get up to at least the first level off the ground. This is when I decide to start singing a song I heard some time ago. Supposedly it's about death or the games, but I sing the morbid song anyways.
"Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
The small bodies swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the flower trees."
When I finish the first part of my song, I end up reach the point where the lowest fruit on the tree hang. The brilliant chocolate colored pods are carefully placed in my sac. Cocoa is the main ingredient of chocolate, or, at least that's what I remember the book saying. The fruit itself tastes bitter, so it needs to be mixed with other ingredients to be delicious. How does chocolate taste? I'm tempted to take a bite out of this foreign fruit, but I decide against it so I don't break the law. A few fruits later, the area around me is picked and I progress around to the other side of the tree for the fruits there, continuing my song.
"Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh."
This is when I start to analyse my words and realize that I'm singing about people being hanged. The song I'm singing really is morbid in such a way, but the choice of words and the melody keep it calm and peaceful. I wonder if anyone heard me singing? I look around and see that the other trees have people on it, but I realize that each tree has two people. Why am I the only one on this tree then? I shake the thought off of my head and focus on trying to pick some more of the fruits. I continue singing the last bit of my song.
"Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop."
I finish my grotesque song and I see one rather large pod for me to pick just withing arm's reach. When I try to grab the beautiful fruit, my hand only scrapes along the side of the pod. Sadly, the pod itself was already ripe and completely detached itself from the mother tree and fall down...