A Peach, A Thousand Peaches

Contemporary Children's Story

Author: Samed Behrengi

Design: Yahya Türkeli

Translation: Poe-Artificial Intelligence
Cover Illustration: Damla Tort
E-ısbn: 978-625-6020-38-2

No part of this work, in whole or in part, may be used without the written permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

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A Peach Tree, A Thousand Peaches

Next to a poor, waterless village, there was a large and well-maintained garden. This garden had many fruit trees and a rushing stream. It was so vast that even if you looked through binoculars from one end to the other, you couldn't see it all.

A few years ago, the village landlord had divided the land and sold it to the villagers, keeping this garden for himself. The sold plots were treeless, waterless, rocky slopes where the villagers planted wheat and barley.

Anyway, these details might not be directly related to our story. Let's return to it. In the garden, there were two peach trees: one large and the other smaller. Their leaves and flowers were identical, making it clear at first glance that they belonged to the same species.

The large tree was grafted. Every year, it bore large, sweet, and juicy peaches, and its branches would sag under their weight. The peaches were so big that one could not hold even one in two hands. People couldn’t bring themselves to pick and eat them. According to the gardener, a foreign expert had grafted a special variety onto it. Surely, the fruit of a tree for which so much money had been spent would be valuable.

Additionally, they had hung an amulet on each tree to ward off the evil eye...

The small peach tree blossomed every year with thousands of flowers but never produced a single ripe peach. It would either shed its flowers or drop its unripe fruits. The gardener did everything he could; he toiled and labored, but to no avail... The small tree remained stubborn, growing each year, but still bore no fruit.

The gardener thought the solution lay in grafting it. He grafted it, but this too was of no use. The gardener became weary of searching for a remedy. Finally, he decided to resort to a trick and scare the small tree. He went to get his saw, bringing his wife along. He began to sharpen the saw in front of the tree. Once finished, he rolled up his sleeves and crouched down, as if he were about to cut it down.

"You'll see the end of your stubbornness now... I’ll cut you down to your roots so that it serves as a lesson to the world!" he seemed to say as he gripped the saw.

At that moment, his wife sprang up, rushed to him, and held his hand from behind: "Kiss death, don’t cut it!" she said. "You’ll see, next year it will grow its peaches without shedding! If it grows, we’ll make it regret being born together with you! We’ll cut it and throw it into the oven. We’ll scatter its ashes!"

But the small tree remained unfazed, not flinching at this intimidation.

So, what was its trouble? Why didn't the small peach tree bear ripe fruit? It’s best to let it tell its own story:

I was one of about one hundred and fifty peaches filled in a basket. The gardener had covered the bottom of the basket with green vine leaves, so that the sun wouldn’t dry our thin skin and dust wouldn’t settle on our rosy cheeks.

Green light filtered through the edges of the leaves, enhancing our beauty.

We had been collected before dawn. Because of this, we were all as cool as the dew above us. We carried the cold chill of autumn nights. The sunlight seeping through the leaves warmed us sweetly inside.

We were all fruits of a single tree. Once a year, the gardener would collect the peaches, fill the basket, take them to the city, sell them to the landlord, and return to the village. Now it was our turn.

I mentioned that we were one hundred to one hundred and fifty ripe and juicy peaches. To take me as an example; my flesh was delicious, my juice sweet, and my skin thin and taut to the point of cracking.

My cheeks were so rosy that you would think I was embarrassed by my nakedness. Moreover, the morning dew still clung to me as if I had not yet washed.

Inside me, my large and tough seed dreamed of a new life. This seed preparing for a new life was actually me. My seed was not separate from me…

The gardener had placed me on top of the peaches in the basket so that I would be the first one seen. Not to brag, but I was indeed more attractive and larger than all the others.

Every peach develops if it finds the necessary environment. As long as it doesn’t become sluggish, get deceived by worms, and give them a chance to penetrate its flesh and gnaw on its seed.

If I had been taken to the landlord in the state I was in the basket, I would surely have been presented to his spoiled daughter. She would have taken a bite and tossed me into the trash. Isn’t she the daughter of a wealthy landlord? She would surely throw it away! Does the landlord's table resemble those of the poor? Ali’s or Polat’s tables have never seen fruit until now…

According to the gardener, the landlord had brought in oranges, bananas, and grapes by plane from abroad to feed his daughter; he even ordered roses to brighten her mood. Of course, he spent a fortune on these.

Moreover, the money spent on clothes, doctors, nurses, caregivers, maids, servants, toys, trips, and travels was an additional cost… You can figure it out. I say ten thousand, you say twenty thousand… Anyway, let's return to our story.

The gardener loaded the basket. When he reached the center of the garden, he must have stepped on a molehill, as his foot sank into a hole. He stumbled and almost fell. Meanwhile, the basket shook. I slipped and fell to the ground. The gardener didn’t see me fall and continued on his way.

The inside of the garden was sunny, but the soil was just warming up. Perhaps due to the coolness of my skin, I felt the sun to be hotter than it actually was.

It was very hot. The warmth gradually penetrated my skin, enveloping my entire being. The juice in my veins warmed up and settled into my seed. I was thirsty...

When I was on my mother's branch, I would suck up her juice when thirsty. I wanted to turn to the sun, to warm me, to drown me in more light.

As the sun shone, my complexion colored, and I felt restless inside. Day by day, I was developing, reddening, and ripening. As my cheeks reddened, I was getting heavier. So much so that my weight bent my mother’s branch down, and I swayed slowly in the breeze.

My mother would say to me:

"My beautiful daughter, never turn away from the sun, my dear!"

"It is our closest friend. If the earth provides our food, it is the sun that cooks it. Just look at those who turn away from the sun; their complexions are yellowed and pale, their bodies are skin and bones. My beautiful daughter, know this; if the sun ever turns away from the world and withholds its warmth and light, no living being can survive...”

For this reason, I would bask in the sun, so to speak, and absorb it. I would feel proud seeing myself grow stronger day by day.

But a fear, an insecurity had engulfed me.

"What if someone upsets the sun, makes it angry? What will we do then?"

I couldn't find an answer to my question. I asked my mother:

"What will we do if someone makes the sun angry one day?"

My mother, with her loving leaves, caressed my face:

"My smart daughter, listen, let me tell you. No matter what a few ignorant enemies of the people do, the sun cannot be upset. The sun cannot change its course. But if one day, the sun grows old and loses its light and warmth and dies, then we will need to find another sun. Otherwise, we cannot continue our lives without light and warmth; we will freeze and wither!"

I've digressed again. Where were we? Ah, I had fallen to the ground... The sun's heat had penetrated to my seed. I was thirsty. My blood was boiling, and my skin was beginning to dry out. It was already cracking…

A grasshopper came running, clashed into me. It started to circle around. I had been injured when I fell from the basket. My juice had spilled into the soil and solidified from the heat. The grasshopper first inserted its pincers into the solid essence, probed, then quickly let go. It stared at the holes made by its teeth for a while. It tried again, raising its horns... It planted its feet firmly on the ground and hung on; I thought its pincers would break. It struggled and finally managed to pull off a small piece of the solid essence. In a moment of triumph, it took the piece and scurried away.

At that moment, I heard some noises. Two children jumped over the garden wall and dashed inside. I recognized them:

“Ali and Polat! They had come to steal fruit. Both were quite bold. Unlike the other children, they weren’t afraid of the guard's rifle.”

The other kids wouldn’t dare approach the garden wall. They were terrified, but Ali and Polat showed no fear at all. With their patched, torn trousers, they would rush into the garden. One day, the gardener even shot at them, but they managed to escape. They were just seven or eight years old…

To cut a long story short, that day they rushed into the garden. They jumped over me and ran towards my mother. Shortly after, I saw them return. Their faces were long… They were ranting to the gardener:

“Look at this, there isn't a single peach left on the tree for medicine!”

“What can you do? The rascal spent a whole month squatting at the base of the tree with a rifle, keeping watch…”

“What a