TWO

After a triumphant performance with his Apple-Eye friends, Cano found himself alone, deep in thought.

He sat beneath his usual tree—the one he always chose when solitude crept in. Like all the trees in the Apple-Eye Garden, its branches were heavy with apples, each bearing a single unblinking blue iris. They watched with their cyclopean gaze, forever staring and awake. No other fruit dared to grow here.

“Hmm. My brother ate one of these once, didn’t he?” Cano twirled the single green leaf of a red Apple-Eye hanging above him. The memory surfaced: his brother biting into the apple. In a sudden impulse, Cano plucked the apple from its branch.

The Apple-Eye was startled, to say the least. It had been dozing and now found itself gripped in Cano's hand. When Cano lifted the apple toward his mouth—where the poor fruit had once met the baring teeth of a curious boy—its gaze widened. For the first time, the Apple-Eye felt fear.

Trembling, the apple shook vigorously. It imagined the horror, the pain, the eternity of being consumed. But Cano couldn’t see that. No one could. And in that instant, the apple decided to act.

Just as Cano’s teeth hovered near, the fruit leapt from his hand. It struck him in the face with a startling BANG, hitting his teeth and nose before bouncing away into the bushes.

Cano stumbled back, “Oh!” he thought. “It jumped!”

And jump it did. After all, it was quite a messy blow to the face! Yet, the blow brought no sting, no ache, and no numbness, for pain did not exist in CADASANO. Cano only felt confusion.

He searched—west to north, south to east, sky to ground—there was no sign of the runaway Apple-Eye. It wasn’t in the sky, and it wasn’t on the ground. That odd little thing had vanished. Then, Cano began to feel strange himself. He wondered why the Apple-Eye had run away when nothing he had ever eaten had ever done so.

“It ran? How did my brother manage to eat one, then?” he thought. “How strange. I was just trying to eat it, but it reacted so strongly and strangely! Why did it run?”

Cano had millions of questions swirling in his mind. He felt a strange set of emotions, something he couldn't quite describe, about what had just happened and what he thought might happen next. Standing in the beautiful Apple-Eye Garden, which he cared for deeply, he mused, “How much of this oddness can I withstand?”

That was a real question. Cano hated the oddness! The weirdness, everything about where he existed troubled him. His curious nature made him special, and that uniqueness was what made Cano himself feel so odd. In a world where odd things were the norm, Cano found it peculiar to feel his world as odd!

“I don’t understand,” Cano thought. “I don’t understand a thing about this place!” He pondered further, “Why do apples have eyes, why did that Apple-Eye run, and why is everything here the way it is?” He recalled his brother telling him that he needn't understand this strange world. “I think that's unreasonable,” he thought. “I want to know why time needs twenty-five hours, why our plants are as tall as five of me stacked like a tower!”

Thus, the poor boy wandered alone in his thoughts. Just as all good things in this world are eternal, bad things should never, and will never, exist. So Cano decided he had pondered enough and, figuratively, tried to quiet his mind. He didn't want to think about what had just happened any further, nor did he want to exercise his mind with what his brother called “pointless wonders.” Instead, he decided to go home.

Cano left the garden area, passed through the seemingly endless sea of seafoam green trees decorated with bright red Apple-Eyes, whose vibrant blue eyes followed him with every daring step. He began to walk down the long path back home.

But behind him, two Apple-Eyes lingered.

They didn’t roll off with the others or return to their branches. Instead, they rolled low to the ground, eyes blinking slowly. When Cano disappeared around a bend, they exchanged a glance and began to follow.

Cano didn’t hear them. He walked with his thoughts too loud, his shoes too soft. The curious Apple-Eyes kept their distance. They didn’t roll side-by-side, one trailed close behind while the other kept to the trees.

When he reached the front of his home, Cano stepped inside without looking back.

The Apple-Eyes remained outside - and waited.