Short Fiction: George Washington and the Forbidden Fruit
A modern fable, in which substantial artistic license has been taken. That said, all of it is true, except for the parts that are false.
(A sequel to Isaac Newton and the Forbidden Fruit, which is not required reading)
In the royal colony of Virginia, George Washington knew of a tree whose fruit had never been tasted. And George was determined to be the first.
As winter slowly thawed into spring and the first signs of fruit began to bud, gossip spread about the tree approaching its first harvest. There were those who said that it was a plant native to the new world whose fruit had never been eaten by settlers of European descent, and that its effects on their constitutions could not be anticipated, as some plants of the new world had been known to induce euphoria, or even madness.
There were those who said that in this unspoiled land relics of the ancient world had survived, and that the tree was kin to the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from the garden of Eden. The first humans who had ever lived had taken a single bite from that fruit and had their minds opened to their infinite potential for Right and Wrong, losing their ignorance of the significance of their own actions, and never being able to see the world in the same light again.
There were those who said that the tree had grown from a seed which had crossed the Atlantic ocean, taken from the gardens of Lincolnshire where its lineage had produced the fruit which inspired the great Isaac Newton. The man who was either the first scientist or the last sorcerer had bound the chaos of the natural world with Greek runes and numerical formulae to force nature’s laws into a shape where they could be wielded by man, a project that was already remaking the world around them, ending the age of magic and mystery.
There were those who said that the small red fruit budding from the tallest branch of the tree was a cherry. Others might have said an apple. George hardly knew or cared. He knew that he wanted it, and he wanted to have it first, before anyone else had a chance to taste it.
George was a clever boy, but at the time, not particularly patient or principled. The branch was high up, too high to climb safely for a child of his limited skill. The tree was sturdy, too sturdy to shake the fruit loose for a lad with his undeveloped muscles. And the fruit was budding quickly, too quickly for him to be able to wait much longer, or he might let some older child or adult to be the first to reap its promising harvest.
George’s plan may have seemed reckless, but he had given it more than a little thought. He knew that trees sometimes fell under thick wind or thunderstorms, and while he was vague on the specifics, it didn’t seem impossible that this tree might someday fall. He knew that trees could be replanted and re-grown, and while he was unclear on the timeline, it didn’t seem likely that his actions would cause any permanent damage. Another tree could always spring up, but he would never have another chance to be the first to taste its mysterious fruit, to confirm for himself if any of the stories told about it were true.
It was on a windy evening that George snuck into his father’s shed to remove a small hatchet he had seen his father use to trim branches and chop down trees being cleared for space or lumber. George tread carefully over to the tree bearing the fruit he desired and swung the hatchet as firmly as he could into the side, making a small dent, but with no impact on the stability of the tree even under the heavy wind.
George gritted his teeth and swung the ax as hard as he could again, making a slightly larger dent, but still the tree remained unbowed. George uttered the most scandalous word he knew under his breath, and began hacking away at the tree, trying to enlarge the dent little by little. If he stopped now, his attempt on the tree would be obvious, with a scolding likely to come from his father when he saw the failed crack. George gathered up all of his strength and swung over and over, making small splinters at the base, little by little until…
The tree toppled over with a sharp crack as George leaped out of the way. The tree splintered and shook further as it felt, with the highest branch landing a foot off the ground, its fruit left uncrushed by the impact. Eager to grab his prize, and with all thought of risk or consequences forgotten, George snatched the fruit up and ran back to the shed to enjoy his treasure in peace.
George admired the small red fruit, as his mouth began to water from the thought of savoring it. He might be about to enjoy flavors the likes of which the whole of Europe had never sampled, or drink deeply from the cup of revelation, a witness to secrets and mysteries no child of his age had ever possessed. Unable to hold himself back any longer, George took a small bite out of the fruit and prepared to relish the taste.
It was more sour than he had expected. George swallowed uncomfortably, as he tried to rationalize for himself that the effort and risk had all been worth it, and he had just taken an unfortunate first bite. Feeling once again resolute, George took a second healthy bite out of the fruit, telling himself how lucky he was to have this opportunity. But again, the fruit tasted like nothing out of the ordinary. No revelations or new sensations appeared in his mind. Perhaps he had failed to wait until the fruit was fully ripe, and a few more days or weeks would have made all the difference. George tried to savor the last bites of the fruit, still unwilling to admit that his efforts could have been for nothing, but all he tasted was a bitterness that crept up on him as surely as the guilt he felt for destroying his father’s tree.
George was a child sometimes given to dramatic sentiment, acting as though his personal crises and concerns were the center of the world itself. But not even he, one suspects, would take such a high view of himself as to believe that by the simple childhood misadventure of cutting down a tree to eat its fruit, he had accidentally altered the destiny of the entire world. But that, of course, is what had just happened.
The shed door slammed shut behind him, and George jumped in place, quickly sliding the ax over to one side while wiping his mouth with his shirt-sleeve, as the looming figure of his father stepped towards him with a stern look on his face.
“George.” Augustine Washington measured his words slowly, as he looked down at his ax on the ground that was not hung up, and at the red stain around George’s mouth. “One of our trees seems to have fallen over. I need to ask you a question, and I want you to be honest. Did you chop down that tree?”
George Washington stood up straight, cleared his throat, and opened his mouth, prepared to lie. Of course not, he was playing here in the shed. He had just been pretending to be a lumberjack, that’s why he had the ax. He had come over from dinner, that’s why he had a stain on his mouth. Now that you mentioned it, he thought he had heard a loud crack earlier outside. Maybe someone did chop down the tree, but it wasn’t him.
But try as he might, George found the words suddenly dying in his throat as he looked up at his father. George shook himself straight, and cleared his throat to toss out an excuse again… but nothing came out, as an instinct stronger than his own will held him back.
It wasn’t guilt or fear that checked his words, in that moment George still believed he had a chance of getting away with his mild juvenile delinquency, and the consequences would be just as bad or worse if he confessed. But for some reason, the notion of lying about his actions seemed as abhorrent to him as the idea of sticking his hand into a warm fire, an instinct to avoid harm as automatic as what had caused him to leap back from being crushed by the falling tree.
Somehow, George knew, with a certainty he could not explain, that lying to his father would be Wrong. That failing to confess to the crime and having it blamed on someone else, would be as irrational as injuring one hand to spare the other a scratch. That if he were to lie about this simple thing, it would be as good as turning the whole world into liars who never trusted each other, and destroy every good thing that had endured. That this choice, like every other, was making a decision to build his character, and he might not like the person he would become, or the world it would leave him in.
George Washington stared down at his own two feet, tears beginning to well up in his eyes. He knew what he had to do, even if he couldn’t explain why. “Father, I can not tell a lie: I did chop down the tree. I wanted the fruit, and I didn’t want to wait. It was selfish, and wrong, and I’m sorry.”
Augustine Washington blinked his eyes and stared in amazement at his son. He had fully expected to have to deal with some imaginative excuse, and prepared himself for a lecture, but his son seemed poured full of sorrow and regret, in a way he never seen before. It felt like he was staring at a different person than the impulsive carefree lad he had known for six years, like George had suddenly come to bear the weight of his choices in a manner he never would have expected from a child so young.
Augustine picked up his son up in his arms and gave him a firm hug. “I know, George, and I forgive you. I am happier that you were honest with me than I am sad that you cut down the tree. If you are always honest, and stick to what’s Right, you will always make me proud.”
George hugged his father back as the tears slid out of his eyes and felt a sense of relief. That whatever else he had done that day, this would be a decision he would never regret.
Over the years, the Knowledge of Good and Evil would impress itself upon George Washington again, and at times he would heed its call, doing his best to be honest and forthright in his dealings. At other times, his instinct would come into conflict with what he believed his duties to be as a man, as a Virginian, or as a soldier, and George would lock himself away to wait out the pangs of conscience like a bad stomach-ache, telling himself he was no longer a child to be at the mercy of his humors to tell him Right from Wrong, when he had traditions and institutions to guide in knowing what the world should be like.
George Washington had become a sharp and strong-willed man, and his will usually won whatever battle he set it to. It took an entire twenty-seven years after the fateful day he ate the fruit for him to be knocked off the course of his life by a sudden irrepressible instinct he could not deny.
Chance had guided him to a tavern, where under the influence of a few pints of ale his fellow Virginians had begun to complain in hushed voices about the actions of the British, who had begun to flex their might over the colonies of the new world. The crown was escalating taxes on the colonies, who had no rights or recourse but to pay to enrich the purses of their masters across the ocean. After one particularly rousing complaint about the injustice of serving a king with no loyalty to them, a hush fell over the table as the patrons waited for George to respond, as a colonial soldier who was known to have sought placement in the British army himself.
George had heard all the arguments before, and knew the party line well enough to recite it in his sleep. There was the divine right of kings, the doctrine that the throne of England had been established by God to rule over its subjects, and that to oppose it was blasphemy. There was the reality that their colonial charters only existed at the pleasure of England, and that by law, the crown had the legal right to impose its will. And there was the plain pragmatic fact that they had no hope of opposing the greatest power in the world, and that to even suggest such a course of action was treasonous.
It might have been the ale, or exhaustion from lack of sleep, but none of those sentiments were what slipped out of George Washington’s mouth at that moment. Instead, a flurry of words shot out of the military veteran faster than his mind could keep up with what he was saying, words that had the crowd gaping at him in astonishment.
Accounts differ as to what George actually said that night, as though he had spoken in tongues, with each listener hearing none of the same words but the same underlying message as clearly as it could be communicated to their own understanding. It was said that, possessed by a strange madness, he had denounced the entire legal order of the world, claiming that no piece of paper could deny a human being their right to self-determination and self-governance. That the king of England was a con artist whose authority to rule was as imaginary as the fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes and as easily rejected once the illusion shattered, for all men are created equal, and governments derive their powers only from the consent of the governed. That taxation without representation was simply theft, and the thousand year institution of British monarchy deserved no more respect from them than a bandit demanding protection money. That freedom was humanity’s birthright, and that while everywhere men are found enslaved to petty tyrants, that freedom could be theirs again. If they demanded that those tyrants should give them liberty, or give them death.
George Washington woke up the next morning with a hangover, and a blurred recollection of the previous night’s events, dimly aware that he had let his impassioned moral instincts get the better of him once again. It did not take long before a certain kind of man began to show up at his door, taking interest in his ravings, wanting to speak to the man who seemed possessed by an ideal to remake the world, would-be disciples seeking a leader who wanted nothing to do with them.
They did not ask him to repeat what he had said, the sentiments he had expressed were already beginning to catch fire among the colonies without his help. They did not even ask if he still held to his words, for their faith in the cause was greater than his own. What they asked was whether, should the occasion arise, if he would be willing to die for the ideals he had stated.
The revolutionaries who had caught wind of him were convinced that the situation with Britain was rapidly coming to a head, and that the Americans would either find themselves crushed underneath the heel of the British, with no greater purpose than enriching their masters, or be forced to fight and die for their independence. And if it was to be war, they would need a man of military experience to lead the army, someone trusted by the people for his sense of Right and Wrong, with the will to see it through. Someone like George Washington.
When first approached, George Washington sighed, and steeled himself for a polite rejection, waiting for his tender conscience to provide him with a list of excuses as to why this would be Wrong. His conscience hated a number of things, but none so much as the cruelty of war. The loss of life, the injustice of sending men off to die for a cause that benefitted them little, a cruel trading of blows until one side finally had enough and gave in, humiliated and broken.
And yet, for once, his conscience was silent.
George Washington swallowed, and attempted to dig deeper within himself, thinking of all the things that could go wrong, the harm this effort could cause to his countrymen, to the British themselves, and all the reasons he had to refuse this call.
His conscience remained silent for a moment, then responded in kind. And what of all the things that could go Right? What if this could be a new beginning for them? What if he could change a few of the things so horribly Wrong with the world?
For a time, George Washington stalled and remained noncommittal, praying for the tensions with Britain to end, a compromise to be found, and a path away from war. But after fighting broke out in Boston, George Washington found himself dressed in military uniform, declaring himself ready to serve the fledgling American Congress, compelled by a conviction that this, for once, was a cause worth fighting for.
Amidst mutiny, hunger, cold, sickness, and bitter exchanges of lead, iron, and steel, George Washington won the war. He surrendered his command, retiring to Mount Vernon, believing his life to be over, and his purpose served. Until a grateful nation made him its first president.
It was years into his presidency that the Knowledge of Good and Evil impressed itself upon George Washington a final time, changing the course of his life and of his country.
The American experiment had yet to fail, a fact which some said owed as much to his leadership as the founders’ skill in constructing their constitution. Their patchwork of checks and balances had held together so far. A democratic republic, accountable to the people if they had done it right. But the line between a legitimate democracy and a dictatorship with a veneer of public support was a fuzzy one. And George Washington had studied enough history to know that democracies tended to decay into dictatorships. Or worse.
The Greek city Athens, the birthplace of democracy, had practiced a form of government accountable to the public, a definition which for them included only the men, and no slaves. A tenth of their population, perhaps. And their egalitarian ideals ended at their borders, telling their neighbors that they needed no appeals to moral reasoning to demand tribute from lesser nations, for “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must”. Democracy was but an excuse to build a stronger coalition which could take what it wanted from others. The Romans themselves had conquered other nations, maintaining loyalty by asking for tribute and providing guarantees of security. A cruel imposition to some. But more just than simply taking someone else’s land by force would have been.
Even in its democratic days, before the rise of the unaccountable Emperors, the Roman Republic had kept slaves against their will, with the Roman orator Cicero once deriding the population of Britain as lacking in value even as slaves, bereft of literacy and musical talent. No one would take those words seriously today. Even without the American colonies, the British had amassed an empire on which the sun never set. Cicero’s words were now seen as a self-serving boast from a short-sighted population drunk on power. And here as well, it seemed history had already repeated itself in their own ability to justify injustice. And while Roman slaves had few rights, they had more than none.
George Washington buried his head in his hands, and wished he could return to a state of ignorance where none of these things offended him. He knew that he had made brutal compromises to remain in power, constrained by some interests, while being free to act in other ways. But surely more Good could still be done. Their nation had untapped potential. Freed from the control of monarchs and tyrants, freed from the threat of religious persecution, freed from some of the petty divisions and hatreds that brought the European nations to the brink of war time and again, they could accomplish anything. Under his leadership, he could make this country great beyond all imagining. He could establish an empire the likes of which Britain could only dream of, ruling with justice, and conquering… no, liberating the world. For who knew Good and Evil better than George Washington, who could be more deserving of absolute power?
George Washington paused for a moment and felt himself on the brink of laughter and tears. The answer had finally come to him. The difference between democracy and dictatorship was a simple thing, in the end. It rested on a single principle. The ability of a government to peacefully transfer power. And to keep any man, no matter how virtuous he believed himself to be, from holding that power forever.
At the end of his life, George Washington ended his association with the evils of slavery, freeing those the law claimed he had owned, all while praying that he could be remembered as something other than a monster.
And at the end of his second term as President, George Washington told the nation that he would refuse to run again. And that despite all the Good he thought he might do, for the ideals of freedom he believed in to survive, the country would need to find a way to persist without him. He was their public servant, a duty for which he is hired and replaced, not a king born to eternal power. To refuse to give his nation the chance to grow without him, would be like… well, like cutting down a tree to greedily taste its first bitter fruit. Rather than letting it grow into something else. Something better than him.
It is said that in those days King George the Third regarded the American experiment with amusement and disdain. That he knew as well as anyone the history of democracies, and the path they inexorably led to, concentrations of power held by charismatic demagogues, manipulative men who clawed their way into the halls of influence and seized the reins in defiance of all opposition until their death, the same as any hereditary monarch in all but name. The fact that George Washington insisted on the Americans calling him “Mister President” rather than “Your Excellency” or “Your Highness” was a cheap ploy, a trivial concession to egalitarian ideals that would never be realized.
And it is said that upon receiving the news that George Washington had rejected the seat of power, stepping away from the leadership of a nation that loved him and would have granted him anything, King George the Third gaped in silence, asking for the news to be repeated to him not once, not twice, but three times. And in that moment, it is said that he trembled, feeling the direction of history shift from underneath him, as the prospect of an unwritten future began to unfold before his mind. And it is said that he spoke only these words in a hushed whisper. “He will be remembered as the greatest of any of us.”
(next in series: Steve Jobs and the Forbidden Fruit)