I love this feeling. I love this hanging feeling. Just me and my branch and a couple of pals. Swinging is a breeze when you have no need for knees. Or just no knees. I just drift. Now I go this way. Now I go that. Dangling in the air like I just don’t care. I can see down. And I can see up. No continuum. No in front or behind; no late or on time. Space and time mean nothing because I just hang from my branch. Now I go this way. Now I go that. I have no hair.
What is that? Oh. It is my friend the other apple. He bumps into me sometimes. I don’t think he can help it. Because he is also an apple and so also lacking in nerves. And lacking in knees. And in arms. Just big and juicy juicy bellies mmm. You wanna taste? No. No tasting. Naughty. That would forsake me.
There is a lack of professionally-trained apple surgeons in the world today.
The black market gets dodgier every day.
Every day, another rotten core. Another half-eaten belly. Think before you eat, dear humans.
What shall I do today, you ask? Hush now! Did you not listen to what I just told you? We apples have no time. There is no such thing as time for us. What is time? No idea. We have but one day. One eternal day in the sunshine of eternal beauty.
Our eternal beauty. Our presence within the singularity. You see it now, don’t you? You see that apples, we apples, are the truly devout? The truly holy? But still we are not glorified. We are not held up, aloft. We are not celebrated in the stained class. But we will be. We will be led to true glory. I am the apple to do this. I am Applestine. I am Saint Applestine.
Now I go this way. Now I go that.
But. Alas. I am a saint, as it is plain for all the world to see; no other apple shines like me. But I am also an apple. And, as so many saints before me have said: what does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.
You see my predicament.
I am a saint. But I am an apple.
What is that coming this way from over yonder field? I have no idea. And what is a field?
Real predicament.
But I would worry if I had a conception of time. I do not. So I do not worry. I shall continue to be in being.
Mmm. Shall I eat now? Yes. Ah, but did my question reveal itself to be a trick? Yes. Because I am always eating. My food comes down and right into my tubby belly ohhh so juicy it’s so juicy tasty tasty love nutrients. I am always eating. In my eternal day. Love. You can be so in love with food when it comes into your very own belly 24/7. Oh juice. Oh holy juice. I have tasted and I have wept. Oh juice. Everything, all of the time.
Perhaps that is where it lies. My sainthood. It lies in my very apple-ness. Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.
We apples wander nowhere; the apple is true believer. The juicy believer.
It is clear to me now.
Juicy is to believe what you do not see – only what you taste. The reward of this faith is to taste what you believe. I am Applestine. Saint Applestine. And you have tasted.
Renounce your earthly desires, oh human. Renounce earthly passions. Renounce earthly time. Renounce hands and legs. Renounce everything but the belly. Become belly itself. Only then can you become juicy belly, and the juicy belly is the only truly free belly.
Human. Oh earthly human. Remember the truth: if you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself. If you reject me, you reject only yourself. Become belly. Do not waver. 24-hour-a-day juice into juicy belly. Become.
But lo? What is happening to me? I am plucked! I am plucked! Hands clasp me. I am come. It is the moment. The judgement. Am I juicy enough? Will the one that plucked me from my juicy 24 hour juice stream deem me juicy enough? Am I juicy? Truly juice? I am! I am juicy! I am juicy! I am juicy! Saint Applestine, for ever more, I shall be known as! I am become only juice! I am become juice itself. Juice, forevermore.