Purpose

Loosely inspired by true events.

The first thing I knew was Jago.

His presence was constant, steady, a warm hum that filled the dark, snug space of our cherry. We had always been together, cradled within the pulsing flesh of the fruit as it swayed on the branch high in the Colombian mountains. Jago was my twin—my other half.

“We were made for this,” he would murmur, his voice vibrating softly against my shell. “Made to grow, to be.”

I didn’t question it. The cherry was our whole world, a comforting cocoon of moisture and warmth. The outside was nothing but muffled whispers: the rustle of leaves, the low rumble of distant thunder, and sometimes, faintly, the rhythmic tapping of hands moving through the trees.

“Do you think they’ll come for us?” I asked him once.

Jago’s hum faltered, just for a moment. “Not yet,” he said. “We’re safe here.”

But even then, I could feel it—a tension in the roots of the tree, a foreboding in the whispers around us. Something was coming.