Tree of Fruits

A society of men and women were living on the side of a brook. On the other side of this brook a tree was situated. It was a tree of which wise men said it was full of fruits ready to be enjoyed by men and women at their old age. With only one condition: when one would cross the border in search for other fruits that same person had lost all his rights to get fruits from the communal tree. And since from their side of the brook it was impossible to see if there were any other trees or fruits, no one took any risk. They all stayed on the side they knew. "Better safe than sorry" was their slogan.

When a young boy in the group saw the tree he asked the others if they already figured out a way to get to the tree. People looked upon him with frowned eyebrows, telling him that there was no need to get to the other side or to the tree.
"But don't you want to taste the fruist from the tree? Don't you want to enjoy them?"
"Oh, such a young man you are, you don't understand anything yet, do you? Right now the tree has not enough fruits yet, but if we let it grow then the fruits will be plenty for all and fall on our side without us having to take any risk."
"But don't you want to enjoy the fruits now, what is the use of your lives if you can't enjoy fruits?"
"Oh, but we get some fruit every now and then boy. And every piece of fruit we get, we enjoy as much as we can. But off course we look forward to our old age when the tree will give us plenty of fruits, so we can eat them all."

When the boy asked them if there were more trees on the other side, the elders answered him that they did not know. If there were, they were out of sight. And they told him about the risk of losing the right to the fruits trees by crossing the brook.

"I see. But just imagine if the tree would die, or it would not produce any more fruits?"
"Impossible! This tree is as old as we know, it won't die ever. So just join the group, help the brook to keep the land close to it fertil and enjoy the fruits when you are old."

The young man refused to stay in the group, he explained that he wanted to enjoy the fruits while he was still young, so he ran-up towards the brook and jumped to the other side. In front of the eyes of the others he grabbed an apple from the tree and jumped jolly further down his road.

"Such a fool, now he will never get any of the fruits later. Life will be hard for him, imagine if there are no more trees. That would be his last and only fruit... At lease we are sure that when we're old we'll enjoy our fruit-tree."

At an older age the once so young man returned to the brook he left at a young age -enjoying one of the many exotic fruits he found on his way-. But when he arrived at the brook he saw the tree had died and across the brook all that was left were hungry, defeated people, staring at the tree and waiting for a miracle to save them. A miracle that was never going to happen.