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Daniel M. Cojocaru was born and grew up in Switzerland (of Romanian and Czech background). He studied English Lit in Zurich and later did his PhD at Oxford University (St. Peter's College). But, since everybody's a critic, he decided to start writing fiction himself, whenever his kids let him. He teaches English in Wetzikon, Switzerland. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook. Recently he took a small step for mankind but a big one for himself and created his own website: danielmcojocaru.com.
"You want a real one? Core and everything?" The Magenius repeated, frowning.
"Is that going to be a problem?" The customer answered.
"Well, not exactly. I guess we could cultivate the tissue and walls in vitro if we can animate cell division. The core, however, is an entirely different issue. We'd need to--"
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"Your point being?" The customer interrupted sharply.
"Well, it's gonna take time and it's certainly gonna cost you. A lot." The Magenius paused, then added: "These things don't grow on trees, you know."
The customer smiled at this and said: "They used to, son. They used to."
The End
This story was first published on Thursday, November 10th, 2022
Author Comments
The idea for this drabble came to me when I was actually slicing an apple with one of those spoked apple-shaped slicers for my kids. I was thinking about how much we take it for granted that fruit grows on trees. Hence the idiom "these things don't grow on trees." But then I thought that in a post-apocalyptic, yet high-tech world, there might not even be trees anymore. The idiom, however, would survive as a dead metaphor without people necessarily remembering what it meant--which of course forms the dramatic core of "Apples."
- Daniel M. Cojocaru
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