Fleas and Orange Trees

Fleas and Orange Trees

"The angel said to them, Go stand in the temple and start explaining everything about this new way of life."

If you're breathing oxygen and your not cold and clammy then you must have some form of life or you wouldn't be alive anymore.

There are many kinds of life in the plant and animal kingdoms. They're all very alive, but the ways that their life lives and how they stay alive are different as possible.

Some plants make delicious fruit and turn dead, dry dirt into soil that can grow even more things. Some algae even turn hard rocks into fresh dirt for worms and things. Other plants only grow on the bodies of anything dead.

Some animals die in water and others live only under miles of water. Also there are fleas and mosquitoes that can only keep themselves alive by sucking everything they can get their grubby paws on. They can't do it any other way or they will keel over.

If you asked the flea about his life, he'd probably say, "Hey man, it's nice to think about growing something or cleaning the air and nice stuff, but I gotta go find some poodles now or I can't pay the rent I owe to the reaper, you know?"

He doesn't have any choice. He's probably not even aware that there are other things that stay alive in a very different way. Things that feed and grow by feeding other things, not by sucking all day. He probably thinks that some of those other flavors of life are a hilarious fever dream cooked up by a spider who was really bored one day. Sprouting yummy orange things for other animals to eat? Letting bees suck on your juices like a free milkshake? Mr. Flea just saw a fat squirrel nearby and doesn't have time for your weird sense of humor.

Even so that doesn't stop an orange tree right over there from throwing oranges everywhere and feeding the bees with nectar. The orange tree doesn't think much of that, that's what everyone does, and the orange tree is doing really great, thank you very much. Mr. Orange isn't looking pale today because he didn't pinch anything with his branches. He didn't go hunting sneakily for someone else's sap to absorb with a spiky root. Hopping around to chase cats? Why would he need to do that? Mr. Orange isn't dying anytime soon, you silly goose! He's got a lot of new branches on the way and doesn't have time for your weird sense of humor.

So if a flea wanted to stop having to always go hunt for cats to chew on and then start growing oranges, that's the plot of the new Pixar movie because it's so ridiculous. The flea would even try to act like an orange tree, and tape orange beads on himself and hang around the grove. But even if he somehow sprouted an orange, it would use up his blood and he would die. He doesn't have the tools to be a tree. Only an orange tree can even think about living in that impossible alien way. It's so absurd to him. Eventually Mr. Flea has to go back to biting things because that's his life - if one thing grows, another has to shrink.

So anyhow... when the disciples were let out of jail by that angel, he told them to go to the temple and start telling people about this new way of life that had just appeared in the world. A method and force of life that was completely new and came from heaven itself.

Before that, life was dog eats dog who ate the dog that ate the other dog. Death and decay are always tearing things back to the ground and you have to fight for what you've got all day. Rome was built on the ruins of older countries. If you see something grab it and run before someone else does. Children and women are for selling and owning. Storytellers talk about Mount Olympus and how there were Elysian fields of plenty for warriors, but that's for keeping the peasants entertained. Kindness and faithfulness are nothing but fool's gold that will get you killed fast and leave your family to starve in a cruel world.

So when the disciples were talking about a new way of life, it was very bizarre and confusing and unreasonably optimistic to say the least. To become more by giving away? Being able to heal things, even your enemies, and not just be terrified of plagues and the future? To not need to cheat people to get rich, and kill to have justice? Being filled with hopefulness because of somewhere you've never even gone to yet?

So going back to the next Pixar movie... Mr. Flea hears from the old aphid in the bucket about a special water spigot by the house, where if he drinks it and then buries himself in the begoinias he will grow into an orange tree. So he thinks, why not? And sure enough, as Randy Newman's award-winning score crescendos, the flea's legs begin rooting and his head sprouts up like a sapling. He's an orange tree! It worked! He really did it! Wow! This is impossible!

Things will probably be very confusing for the flea after a while. He doesn't really understand what it means to be an orange tree, just random rumors he heard while hopping around. He'll probably try to understand it by comparing things to his life as a flea because that's his method. He is only an orange tree now but he thinks like a flea.

He might panic after a while and wonder if it was really a good idea. After all, what do orange trees even hunt for? Maybe veggies? And how can he even hop if his mouth is stuck in the ground, and he has too many green feet sticking out of his head? Is that his head? How can he hide from the sun and hungry birds?

Maybe there are some other little orange trees growing in the dirt there under the spigot of wonders. Maybe the other sprouts have learned a little but not much. So they tell him that his roots are his maw now, and he sucks blood from the earth instead of animals. Okay, that's not too hard to grasp. A little weird, but hey, it must be an orange thing! He has no idea why he would bite the earth instead of animals, or turn his feet to the sun, but he wants to be a team player so he does it. He wonders if he's going to starve or get eaten but keeps taking the strange advice.

Over time, the larger trees may become wiser. They will truly understand what's going on and why, what it is to design juicy oranges for all and grow because of the free and neverending sun. They will laugh when bees tickle instead of trying to shoo them away like a pack of hungry wolves. They will rest in the knowledge that water keeps flowing to them, instead of trying to grow out hungry branches and grab the cat who's passing by. And it is not blood they drink but water, and the Earth gives it willingly. The birds aren't trying to catch him, they want to nest in his majestic branches. Eventually, the wisdom of a flea is an empty memory. He no longer needs to remember which animals are slow, or how to hide in the grass. Everything that was literally life and death before has become nonsense. He has learned about this new way of life.