There once was a man, an arborist by trade, that planted a peach tree. Every day he would carefully tend the tree, watering it, pruning it, harvesting it, binding it, mulching its earth and tilling its soil. In return, the tree was good to the Arborist, supplying him with his fill of lush and fresh peaches always of a perfect plumpness, ripened to a golden-pink hue and gently plucked from the twig with effortless care and attention to detail. The Arborist loved his tree as only an arborist could and would spend hours tending to its various fickle needs. One day, while at the market, he noticed the peaches that were available for others to buy: Small, shriveled, disheveled, colorless. The wafting scents of mouthwatering sweetness (with a punctuated hint of florality) were all but gone in the slovenly drupe sold to fellow patrons. And so, the Arborist mused to himself how wonderful it would be if everyone could have access to their fill of lush and fresh peaches just as he did.
That night the Arborist became troubled. He tossed and turned in his bed, with the light of the full moon shining in through an open window and silvering the wooden deck boards upon which he slept. All at once he sat up straight, eyes wide and with good humor he began to formulate a plan to help the world obtain lush and fresh peaches. He would start a shop, a door to door type setup selling seeds. Packaged with the seeds would be a little booklet with information on how to properly tend the seeds, coaxing them into budding little bushes that would become great trees. There would be chapters on water and chapters on soil and chapters on sunlight and chapters on placement and pruning. Within a few years, people would be able to grow their own trees and have a steady supply of lush and fresh peaches. No one could ever go hungry again and they would feel satisfied in the knowledge that they were living on the product of their own hand, safe in their intellectual pursuit of a newfound skill. It would be a bit tedious, the Arborist admitted to himself, and people would be reluctant at first to learn a new skill so arduous and laborious, but the end result would be far more satisfying and last far longer than buying the poor things at the market.
And so, the Arborist's Seed Company was founded, a veritable dictionary example of entrepreneurial pursuit. The kits sold well and nearly every rap of the knuckles led to a sale as a happy, interested customer purchased a small packet of seeds and a booklet, excitement plastered across their faces as they thumbed the pamphlet while thanking the Arborist. And it was this way for several years more and the Arborist became well established and well loved amongst his community. He purchased land. He began an orchard. He built a house. But it was not too long past that time that a problem arose: No one in the community was left to sell his little kits to. Everyone was now growing their own lush and fresh peaches and the community was saturated and satisfied.
Except for the Arborist.
He developed a plan. He would market his product to a broader audience and begin selling both near and far. He would also start selling young saplings. Yes, they would cost a bit more and yes, there would be a delivery fee to cover the added transportation costs for such a thing, but the yield would ultimately be better. You would have a professionally seeded young tree to get you on your way to enjoying lush and fresh peaches even sooner and the tree would pay for itself within the first year anyway so really, it was quite the steal. Of course, if you already had a peach tree from the previous seed kit then you could get a small discount if you bought an additional sapling. And then you would have two peach trees for twice as many peaches! The Arborist hired some workers and paid for a large billboard on the outskirts of town. He hired local newsboys to go door to door on their route and tack on a small brochure on the new sapling option. He held a grand opening on his own grove and invited the mayor to cut the proverbial ribbon. It was a glorious day with pretty girls in sundresses, broad, young men on the prowl for a flirt and lots of locally brewed peach cider made only with the lushest and freshest of peaches to get the festivities going. The census would later indicate a population influx nine months later, and a host of cheap marriages followed by expensive divorces. The Arborist became a public figure and mused openly to the townspeople about his more political aspirations. His goal was not yet finished until everyone had lush and fresh peaches and he felt he could do more good in Washington. More people than ever were satisfied…
…Except for the Arborist.
With the Seed Company in full swing and operating at scale by this point, the Arborist made the trek to Washington to lobby on behalf of the good townspeople from his home. He wanted to show the politicians there all the good he had done for his community and how his peach enterprise could be used to better society as a whole. He wanted them to share in his passion to bring lush and fresh peaches to all. So he met with the Politicians, one by one, in the great halls of the Founding Fathers and began to sell them on the grand idea. They were excited, but also a bit frigid toward his advances for general support. Didn't they like the idea? Of course, they always love the idea of an intrepid, young startup ready to tackle the world! But why so cold, then? Perhaps, we just need a little bit more to think about. The market is already quite competitive after all. The Arborist was taken aback. His idea was not his own? He discovered that there was another that shared his same goal and they had gotten there first: A Veritable Peach Corporation, it was! The Politicians were already quite satisfied.
Except, for the Arborist.
He was, understandably, incensed. Incessant in inquiry, he injected his implicated ire involuntarily into all institutes he could. He pondered his course, presumed his action, and pontificated his plan of platitudes and placations upon all the marble steps he could. Voraciously, though vexed he was, he verbally voiced villainous verbiage toward the Veritable Peach Corporation, valiantly verifying his victimizations in marketable vagility. Vermiculate bore verisimilitude toward his plight, he wagered. And with large language and little left of the town he once called home, the Arborist secured the blessing of many of the Politicians. But the Veritable Peach Corporation had deep pockets and a long time to wait out a grudge. They could wait, biding their time. The Politicians had seen enough: They were satisfied.
Except for the Arborist.
He saw opportunity. Wherever he went, whenever there was a market. Whenever there was a field or a parking lot. Whenever there was a yard or a garden. He saw a peach grove. He saw an opportunity. By this time he had secured laws protecting the cultivation of peach groves in five states and had opened franchises of his Seed Company in twelve. And so, some years later, a Representative of the Veritable Peach Corporation approached the Arborist with a proposal: The two companies would merge into a conglomerate. With the marketing prowess and deep knowledge of the Arborist and the infinite pockets and lobbying power of the Corporation the possibilities would be endless! There would, indeed, be enough lush and fresh peaches for everyone. The Representative was a fellow of the highest degree, with slicked back hair and equally well oiled tongue that spun silken word webs whenever he spoke and with the gusto of a Greek tragedy, he convinced the Arborist to agree to a set of terms. And it was so. The two companies merged into one. Of course, the name of the Veritable Peach Corporation would be kept. Of course, there would be a need to trim some fat around the edges that the Arborist's Seed Company had acquired over the years. Of course, some pricing would need to be adjusted of the end product. Of course, the Arborist would be moved out of his current role and placed somewhere more appropriate…perhaps a seat at the Board would be sufficient? Of course it would. The Representative was quite well satisfied with these terms. The Veritable Peach Corporation was quite well satisfied with these terms. Everyone involved seemed satisfied.
Except for the Arborist.
Now wealthy beyond all of his childhood dreams, the Arborist settled with grace into his newfound seat at the board, but perhaps not much else to dress: He had the start of a tingle of a faint inkling that something was, perhaps, just a bit different than it once was for him. He brushed such thoughts to the side with heavy sighs each morning as he woke up at a comfortable hour and had his morning coffee, eggs, and toast. And of course, a small dish of lush and fresh peaches. Thereafter, he would read the news, briefly, get dressed for the day and begin his duties on the Board of the Veritable Peach Corporation. The job had become different. It had become numbers and percentages, hunches and suppositions, philosophies and ethics. Choices were very broad now, someone else would worry about the specifics. The Arborist simply needed to keep a finger on the pulse of what made the Veritable Peach Corporation successful. And he was quite good at doing so. Things continued in this manner for a long while. Years passed. The orchards grew and the Corporations power and reach grew with them. The farms were automated and the seeds were licensed. Every lowercase peach quickly became an Uppercase Peach. No one could ever hope to compete with the power to distribute lush and fresh peaches that the Veritable Peach Corporation wielded. Success was, by now, simply a guarantee of the day as there was no one left to challenge it. It was understood internally that any potential challenger in the space of Uppercase Peaches would quickly be purchased for obscene sums of money that no one in their right mind could refuse.
Decades passed and the Arborist grew gray. One day, shortly after breakfast, instead of going to work he decided he would go for a walk in the countryside out of the city that had engulfed his home. About an album’s worth of music later, the Arborist found himself in a bright field full of fresh air and a small peach stand at one end. He approached it, curious, bought a peach and bit in. His eyes expanded and his jaw dropped: These were the most delicious peaches he had ever had, far exceeding the quality of his own! He couldn’t believe it and thought there must be some mistake. Surely this stand was using Uppercase Peaches without a license. No, he was assured they were not and were instead lowercase peaches grown a short hectare over. Suddenly, the Arborist came to the terrifying realization that his peaches were no longer that lush nor that fresh. An immense sense of dread and a crushing heartbreak swept over him as he realized he had become the very thing that had prompted him to begin selling peach seeds. The Arborist stuttered against his own mind until finally he wept under the realization that his entire life’s work had been one of greed and miserliness, twisted here through a wrongful pursuit. He had set out to change the world, allowing everyone easy access to lush and fresh peaches they grew themselves. And now, his company had become an entity of its own, selling branded seeds at outrageous prices to big farms and buying out the peach stands; selling Veritable Peach Corporation collaborations with frozen meals and shilling undesirable yields as both lush and fresh. He looked back at his life’s work and realized the pointlessness of it all, that he had mistakenly sold out to the highest bidder. The Arborist crumpled and collapsed as the world around him began to spin.
And yet, through the tearful remorse and the mists of regret, a moment of clarity arose: The Arborist could see it all in a way he never could before. He saw the consolidation of his company, even as it grew. He saw the pressure to compete stamp out the competition entirely and even as he succeeded personally, accumulating wealth and prestige in his community, he saw the dire state of his peaches. The innovation had ceased, the crafts of agriculture and grafting relegated to laboratories as he himself destroyed his own trade. He saw his company in a new light, and he remember back to when he was simply The Arborist. He remembered his neighbors and his humble beginnings selling packs of seeds and instruction guides. And as he remembered, all he could arrive at was the misfortune he had caused along the way. He knew what he had to do.
The Arborist bought three pounds of the lush and fresh peaches from the stand and tipped handsomely before hopping joyfully in his auto. The air was light, the top down. The sun had already set by now, but a light tan glow hemmed the sky to the earth at the seam and cast long, dreamy shadows quickly fading to blackness somewhere ahead of themselves. The Arborist ran over his plan in his mind, tasting every little bit of it as he did. He would remove the license on the seeds and turn his company public, offering anyone that wanted a small piece of the company’s ownership and even a small piece of its profit. The Arborist glanced down at the lush and fresh peaches. He would allow anyone who was a shareholder in his fine new company have a voice in how the company handled its choices. Everyone would have newfound power as a co-owner of the company. The Arborist reached down and grabbed for a peach, snagging one that happened to feel just perfectly ripe and especially succulent. His new company would also—
Time stopped like it had never stopped before. Somewhere along the way, the shadows grew a bit too long, a bit too similar to the blackness. Somewhere along the way, an unexpected turn, a shift in the lanes. Somewhere along the way, a bit of wetness on the road. Somewhere along the way, the Arborist reached for a peach.
The vehicle briefly skidded as it landed its passenger side front wheel. The gravel alongside the road shifted precariously: The car was moving too fast. Shifting slightly to the right, then left, it finally settled on a slightly right-skewed angle, but generally moving straight on, driver’s side. The Arborist startled up, peach still in hand and reached to grip the steering wheel harder. But the fates of time bestowed no gifts this day. The front of the car crumpled like a candy wrapper upon impact; the steering column separated and flew forward, impaling the Arborist through his sternum. Blood poured from the wound and the Arborist’s lungs collapsed around multiple tears and punctures. He wheezed and struggled to reach for anything that might signal an ambulance, signal help, but nothing was there. Within several agonizing seconds, the Arborist died.
The Veritable Peach Corporation put out a statement of condolence for the death of their beloved Arborist and all he had done for the company. The board of directors shared the sentiment and wrong several obituaries to the editors of local papers. Friends and family marveled at the circumstances, some handling it better than others. There was some speculation and there was some commotion made by a few of the Arborist’s closest confidants, but overall, little changed. Peach stands were still purchased. Seeds were still licensed. People still bought Uppercase Peaches at the store and thought little of the slow decline in quality. Day to day life at the Veritable Peach Corporation resumed for everyone.
Everyone, except the Arborist.