The Mystery of the Unknown Fruit

There is a tree that grows in the midst of the garden. A very strange tree. Strange fruit. Wait, isn't that the name of a '60's group?  Nope. Guess not. I just looked it up and it has many references, including music, art, film and literature. It will also provide some haunting images of American history. This is not That. That is an important topic, but not for this story. I'm going to try to make this a happy story.

It's a mystery without any clues. Well, very few. I doubt it's the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I have not eaten of its fruit. Not this one. Mainly because I have no idea what kind of tree it is. I'm hoping you might be able to help me out.

Actually, there are six of these trees, but only two bore any fruit and only one grew a cluster worth mention and photographs.  I have looked online numerous times, at numerous possibilities, none of which completely fit the description and photos, given the flesh, the pits, the outer appearance. The outside is a small version of the soursop, which is grown in Africa (and elsewhere, apparently) but the insides don't match at all. And, what a tree indigenous to Africa might be doing in my garden in Minnesota...gives me pause for thought.

Still pausing.

Last night, I was on the phone with JB, my friend in Moab (actually, he's my third ex-husband, but we've managed to stay friends) and I told him about my mystery tree. He suggested that it could well be an alien tree growing alien life-form pods which will then enter my body only to emerge through my chest or back at some uncertain time and place. Then I suggested he's read and/or watched too much sci-fi. We bantered about the possibilities, each offering scenarios. We laughed.

Then I tried to go to sleep. With visions of The X Files dancing in my head.

There are other clues. Or not. There is the bicycle on top of my garage, festooned with Christmas lights.

And, there's the "root cellar," leading into some sort of strange chamber.

Okay. Maybe that really is a root cellar. But, that does not explain the bicycle.  "E.T.  Phone home,"  ring a bell?

First thing this morning, I walked out in a light rain to my perennial garden, where the green leaves have turned to gold, picked a couple of the fruit and brought them inside, with mild trepidation. I stared them down and then cut into them. Voila!  One had three pits, or stones, and the other had only one, slightly larger. Nothing cataclysmic. Nothing other-worldly. So far, so good.

But, here I am, occasionally looking over my shoulder at the fruit lying on the kitchen counter, still wondering. And watching.

Please tell me you know.



P.S. JB was the one born in 1947. You know, the year of the Roswell Incident?  Yeaaah.