The Tree

A man stands beside a tree. He is eating fruit. The fruit appears to have come off the tree. A man, Todd, and Denise, approach from stage right.

Todd: Look, Denise, a fruit tree.

Denise: Maybe that man will let us try some.

Todd: Excuse me, sir, could we try some of your fruit?

[Man tosses a fruit toward Todd]

Denise: This fruit doesn't look so good.

Todd: [Remarking as if to himself] Doesn't look ... like a pleasant meal. [Pauses ... then tosses it back]

Man: You'll never know how good it is until you bite into it with everything inside you.

Denise: And there isn't a lot of it there.

Man: There's plenty!

Todd: Plenty?

Man: Yes. Enough for everyone who is willing to eat it.

Denise: What sort of a tree is it anyway?

Man: [Seriously] This tree? It's the only one of its kind.

Todd: What kind is that?

Man: This is the tree of Life.

Denise: [Appearing very concerned, disapproving] I've heard about this one!

Todd: Warned is more like it.

Man: Who warned you?

Todd: Everyone does.

Denise: I heard it causes cancer.

Todd: I think maybe the CDC or FDA mentioned something about it.

Denise: I think a snake told me about it. He said we couldn't even touch it.

Todd: We shouldn't eat from an endangered tree.

Denise: Should we?

Todd: What happens if we eat from that tree?

Man: Then you will become like God's Son. You will have life abundantly.

Denise: [pauses] Who will we become like?

Todd: God is a myth invented to teach people right from wrong. We have already become like 'God'.

Man: Have you?

Todd: Sure. We have the knowledge of good and evil. It was such a great thing to learn. Think of all the things we got out of that.

Denise: Like what?

Todd: You've heard the phrase, 'Stolen water is sweeter than wine'?

Denise: Somewhere, I think.

Todd: We now know perfectly well how wrong stealing is, and that's why we can enjoy it so much. As long as we keep our intentions dark, everything we do can taste like stolen water.

Denise: You're right, that is really great.

Todd: And my favorite part about knowing good from evil is pretending like we're good people. Then we can look down on other people who do evil. That is the greatest evil of all, and the greatest pleasure in life.

Denise: You're so profound.

Todd: So why would we want to eat from this tree? What could it offer us that we don't already have?

Man: After all that there is still one thing that escapes you ...

Denise: ... what?

Man: Life.

[Denise and Todd groan.]

Todd: [to Denise] I don't want to spend the rest of my life out here wondering if I should eat this.

Man: This tree won't be here for long.

Denise: We should decide.

Todd: Maybe if my friends told me to eat it. Or an expert.

Denise: Maybe if I could still secretly worship money.

Todd: Maybe if I could continue having secretly suicidal thoughts.

Denise: Maybe if I could complain about it, just a little.

Todd: Maybe if it appeared to taste a little better?

Denise: Maybe if I could choose it, but in a luke-warm 'I didn't really mean it' kind of way.

Todd: Maybe if it would help me to live by routine, so I don't have to understand what it is I really want.

Densie: Maybe if I could say someone forced me to eat it.

Todd: Will you force us to eat this?

Man: No.

Todd: Please?

Man: No.

Denise: Oh I don't know.

Todd: What if ... if ... suppose we took a bag of them and pretended to eat them. When people asked what we were eating we could get all stoic and say, "Life ...". People would say, "He's eating that gross-looking fruit. He must be a rugged, macho guy." Then we could -I don't know- hit them up for a free drink or something.

Man: Or they might think you were very foolish for eating a fruit with this appearance.

Denise: Or what if we took a bag full and sold it on eBay. Sure it looks gross, but we could call it 'Life'. I bet some crazy people would pay a ton of money for it. Maybe even, like, sell their fields, you know, to buy it.

Man: ... or, if they're like most people they'd buy the fruit that looks good to eat. If you sell it to lunatics, well, lunatics usually don't have a lot of money.

Todd: I have another idea. What if we filmed ourselves putting it in a treasure chest, and then sailed out into the middle of the ocean. We would then sink the fruit to the bottom of the ocean. We could sub-title the film, "They gave away everything that mattered to them, even life itself ...". Everyone would feel sorry for us.

Man: I wonder if you would feel sorry for yourself.

Todd: [As if not listening to the man] ... We'd be rich and famous!

Denise: Or what if we made it into a commercial for saving the environment or maybe for curing an untreatable disease. We could say, 'Fighting pollution is more important than living.' That sounds profound to me.

Todd: A lot of very different ideas ...

Man: They sound the same to me.

Denise: In what way?

Man: Well, in every plan you never taste what life is like for yourself. You're mostly putting on a show to get attention and money.

Todd: Sure, [putting his arm around the man] we'd fool some people, but it would all be in good fun.

Man: Have you considered that maybe the person you would be fooling would be ... yourself?

Denise: I considered that once, then somehow I must have tried to forget it very quickly.

Todd: Hmm ... just like I'm already forgetting what you were trying to sell us here.

Man: I wasn't trying to ...

Denise: Let's go, Todd, before anyone else tries to scam us.

Todd: Just look at that fruit. What a scam.

Denise: Why don't you try selling it on Ebay?

Todd: Or making a film about your sad story?

[Todd and Denise laugh as they walk off stage]