The little tea leaf that could

There once was a bush. This bush grew leaves that people would pluck, dry, and steep in hot water to taste its peculiar aroma. They called it tea. So this bush was a tea bush. This bush didn’t want to be a tea bush, however. It wanted to grow something much more than boring old tea. It had heard its neighbours, also, curiously, bushes growing tea much like itself, talking about other plants.

Now, this bush had never seen another plant before. It had always been where it was.

It heard a whispered tale of a place called an orchard, and this orchard had things called apple trees. These apple trees grew much taller than a tea bush could, and they made these things called fruit – brightly coloured bundles of joy, the bush thought.

The bush wanted to be an apple tree. It felt trapped in a tea bush body. It listened to as many tales about apple trees as possible, then began to try. It tried to grow an apple. It worked very hard every day, and it forgot to spend time on its leaves as it willed the end of one, just one, stalk to grow a fruit.

Its new leaves were smaller, its old leaves were plucked long ago.

And then one day, something miraculous happened. A little bud sprouted. It kind of looked like an apple! The bush was so happy. It was well on its way to changing its life and moving to a beautiful orchard and becoming an apple tree, as it should be.

There was movement along the bushes. Some of those beings that came by to look and pluck at leaves now and then were walking along. They stopped in front of the bush.

“Look! What’s that?”

The bush felt a thrill of anticipation at being shipped off to a new home, to be in its rightful place.

“I don’t know. Could be a parasite of some sort. We’d better get rid of it now, in case it infects the plantation.”

• 25 Jun 2004

• Thinking