Always Afternoon

The Orchard

The boat is still where you left it. That is the first thing everyone checks, and the orchard does not mind being checked. It is drawn up past the tideline with the oars stowed, and it will be there later, and later, and later.

It is afternoon here. It was afternoon when you came up the path, and the light has not moved since — the same low gold along the terraces, the shadows of the trees lying in the same direction they were lying an hour ago, if an hour is a thing that happens here. Nobody in the orchard can tell you how long they have been in the orchard. They can tell you what they were doing before. They tell it the way people tell dreams: quickly, and with a little less conviction each time.

The fruit is not the point, whatever you have heard. You can eat it or not. What holds people is duller and harder to leave: it is pleasant here, and nothing is expected of you, and the afternoon does not end, so nothing you put off is late.

There is a low wall at the gate. The custom is that you do not arrive empty-handed and you do not arrive carrying. You say the one thing you have stopped carrying, out loud or in chalk, and then — this is the part that works — you have stopped carrying it. People who have been here a long time say the wall does most of the orchard's work, and the trees get the credit.