Somewhere on an island, in the middle of a green ocean, is a tree. This tree bears wonderful fruit, of different shapes and sizes and colours. Some smell like berries but look like peaches. Some taste like oranges but smell like apples. And some look like crimson cherries but taste like rotten bananas.
This tree plays chef to the many critters on the island who feed off the weird fruit. Once eaten, the fruit can bestow great energy or worse bitterness in a critter. It is unfortunate for those who think that the pretty-looking, sweet-smelling fruit is always good for you. Sometimes the more malodorous, the more reliable. It is strange to think so, is it not? How can one escape deception of a mere fruit, you might ask.
Well, usually critters are more intuitive. They can sniff out the essence of the fruit. Maybe they'll prod it. Maybe they'll put it to the test. Just maybe they'll let some other critter suffer for it. But! in the end they never truly know until they've taken the first bite. That first bite that buries their teeth deep within the flesh, with juice spilling over and oozing down the side of their wide lips.
Some critters become leaders, others followers, and some others corpses. And the fruit remains hanging off the tree, waiting to be plucked. Some age too fast and fall off their branches to be squished upon landing on the ground. They wait for the micro-critters to slowly eat them away.
So how would you judge the fruit of this tree? Take a bite & you shall see.
(photo via KasilWorkshop.com)
