There is something very odd going on in the orchard. At night, after sunset, there is a curious hubbub. It is the sound of talking fruit. Hanging from their branches, the orchard fruits chatter away in the darkness. Each has a characteristic tone. The apples are shrill, the pears engage in tirades, the persimmons mutter. All the fruits talk constantly and simultaneously, so it is extremely difficult to decipher a word any of them is saying, even if we understood their languages.

Are any of them listening to each other, or are they just babbling, incoherently, oblivious to their fellow fruits? Why do they wait to speak until nightfall? Why are the fallen fruits silent? Why does nobody come to gather the fallen fruits from the orchard floor? Why are they left to rot?

It is the most curious of orchards, over there beyond the railway track and the viaduct, surrounded by thick thorny hedges in which no bird will nest.