Christopher Boucher - Golden Delicious

Ralph studied a pile of words next to the lump. “What are these?” he said.

Diane fished into her skirt, found the bitten-into apple, and held it out to the Memory of Johnny Appleseed.

The Memory’s face bloomed. “What — where did you—” He pointed at the Reader. “Where did you get this?” He took the apple with both hands and held it like an egg.

“Holy shit,” said Ralph. “Is that what I think it is?”

The Reader turned to him. “Let the Memory deal with the story of Appleseed,” she said. “I need you to help Diane pick up as many words as you can find.”

Ralph looked confused. “Why?” he said. “They’re all—”

“She knows that, honey,” said Diane. “Just do what she says.” She led Ralph to an adjacent field to look for sentences. He soon caught on and understood what they were looking for. When he couldn’t find the exact right words, though, he decided to improvise. He selected three words from the page—“junction,” “author,” and “veneer”—and dragged them over to Diane. “Do me a favor and cut these, will you?” he said.

The Mother flipped on her skirtsaw and it whirred to life. “Where?” she said. Ralph pointed, and Diane pulled the blade through the words and gave Ralph the wordparts he needed: the “au,” the “ction” and the “eer.”

Then Diane went back to what she was doing: dislodging a top layer of words—“nuisance,” “selfish,” “brat”—and digging deep. Finally, she found the words that she was looking for — that she’d been trying to find for years: “I was just so scared.” And, “I was angry.” And, “And sad. I didn’t know what to do with it all.”

And then, “You were wonderful the way you were. You didn’t need to be anything, or do anything, or be anyone.”

Ralph and Diane carried their words across the fields and lay them on the ground by the Reader. The Memory of Johnny Appleseed stood by, watching them arrange the words. They didn’t all fit together — some letters were rotted beyond recognition; other phrases were irrelevant or heavy with sorrow — but they did their best to order them so they made new sense. “Put that one there, how about,” said Diane at one point. After watching the Reader work for a few minutes, Ralph knelt next to her and sunk his hands into the page.

“What’s she doing?” the Memory of Johnny Appleseed asked Diane.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Diane said. “She’s revising.”

I. YELLOW TRANSPARENT II

That spring, the Auctioneer reappeared in Appleseed. Her arrival was completely unannounced — one day she was spotted walking over the margin, her arms full of meaningless words and throwaways. She didn’t even go home to Converse Street — instead, she walked directly to the empty Amphitheatre. Then she stepped up onto the bare cement stage, held up an item at random — a jar of hearsay — and began to shout.

“Ourfirstitem​ladiesan​dgentsishear​sayfinea​ppleseedhear​sayyoure​notgoing​tofindanyrum​orsbetter​thantheseru​morsrigh​therethishea​rsayisholyi​tholdsthe​bonesof​truthandmemor​yletsstartthe​bidding​athalfaconcept.”

Soon, a numb passerby humbled to the edge of the Amphitheatre. Lulled by the Auctioneer’s call, he blurted out a meaning-bid without even really thinking about it. Just then, a wandering thayer appeared in the opposite corner of the Amphitheatre and shouted out a higher amount. The numb countered; the thayer did, too.

News of the auction rilled through town — it wasn’t long before a crowd had assembled. Someone lent a table; a Cone delivered a pulpit. Appleseedians brought meaningless items to the stage and the Auctioneer held them up, sang of their potential, and made them meaningful. That auction ran for ten hours straight. Looking out at the jam-packed house, the Auctioneer could see off-duty Cones, former Mothers, Muir Drop Forgers. She wondered if Uncle Joump was out there. And how about her father? Or her brother — where was her brother?

II: A GRAFTING

Two pages over, the Memory of Johnny Appleseed drove his shovel into the fibers. When the hole he’d dug was deep enough, he pulled a single seed from the Reader’s apple and dropped it into the soil.

As the Memory was covering up the seed, Ralph drifted over to check on him. When he saw what the Memory was doing, he told him to wait right there — that he’d be right back. Ralph ran out to his truck for an emotional wrench and a bucket and carried them to the happiness hydrant on the corner of Apple Hill and Converse. When he turned the bolt on the hydrant, happiness flooded the street. Ralph filled the bucket and left the faucet running; then he carried the bucket of happiness out to the Memory of Johnny Appleseed. The Memory took it from him and carefully poured the happiness on the apple seed.

Within paragraphs, the first saplings of happiness-fueled stories began to peek through the pages. The stories were restorative: soon, the holes in the pages and people started closing. In the center of town, the windows grew back at Small Pear and the Bagel Beagle opened for business. Someone turned on the lights at the Big Why, and a truck arrived with a new batch of questions. Cordial Carl did some deep breathing and fired up his grill.

Heartened by the sounds of the auction, people started pulling off of the highway and into Appleseed; soon they were arriving in droves. And all of them needed food and housing. With two new apple orchards up and running, Ralph reopened Belmont and Woodside and shifted to part-time at Muir Drop; then he quit altogether.

III. JUPITER

In the new stories, wasn’t so alone. He was still bald and overweight, but he had a good strong heart, a zell imagination, a tough soul. His house was still alive and everyone inside it safe and sound. He didn’t always see I to I with his mother, a nurse at Appleseed Hospital, but they got along OK — sometimes they’d go to Appleseed Library together and then talk about what they were reading. He was closer with his father, Ralph, who he worked with at the apartment buildings. had a pet sentence, a few good friends, and even a girlfriend or two. In high school he worked at a community theater and started writing stories in his spare time. He stopped eating so many chips, and learned when to stay quiet and when to speak. When he was eighteen, he graduated from Appleseed High and went on to college.

At the end of the story, the Reader finished reading. Not great, you decided, but not bad, either.

The Reader straightened up and wiped her brow.

“Well?” Diane asked her.

The Reader looked down at the silent page and shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought — if we put these together — he’d come back, but—”

They all stared at the lump.

“Maybe he was dead too long,” the Memory of Johnny Appleseed said.

“My poor boy,” said Ralph.

“Ormaybewe​justhavent​foundtherigh​twordsyet,” said the Auctioneer.

Diane leaned down to the page. She made a few more sentences — the simplest, truest ones she could:

“You are good.”

“You are loved.”

“I have always loved you. I always will.” She planted them and pushed page over them.

Suddenly, I was pulled through the words without warning: back through letters and pages, back to the body of —I found my fat stomach, my still feet, my cold brain, my dead thoughts, my closed eyes.