Oh what a splendid apple tree! Joan was so proud of it. Every year it produced hundreds of apples. They were the perfect apple, not too sweet and not too sour. Perfect for cooking and perfect for eating raw.
Every year Joan would preserve apple sauce, and make apple pies, and strudel, and everything that required apples. The cider she made in the shed behind her garage; she didn’t want thieves eager for alcohol loitering at her gate. Joan would share her apple produce with the neighbours. But one neighbour was the problem…
Joan’s apple tree grew on the boundary fence.
“How am I meant to get the clothes dry when your apple tree shades my clothes line from the sun?” asked the neighbour. “Chop that wretched tree down.”
Joan got in an arborist to cut some branches off to allow the sun to shine through, but the neighbour was still not happy. “Chop that wretched tree down or I’ll somehow get rid of it myself.”
Joan refused. And then, ever so slowly, the tree died.