Abstract Applesauce

(A scrumptious little gem, by Vee)

So, you say you come from the star Ten-Alp, in a galaxy we humans haven’t discovered yet? And you are curious about an old saying we have: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
You want to know two things. First, what is an apple? Second: What are doctors and why do we need them?
Well, I won’t touch the doctor thing. But I will give a stab at explaining apples.
Here. Stand in front of this large blank screen. It’s called a canvas. As you see, there is nothing on it. Just blankness.
Stand there and just look at it. Stare at it.
Slowly, draw a curved line. Color? It can be any color you want it to be. Bright blue? That’s fine. This is an abstract idea, not a literal drawing.
Actually, I like the thought of bright blue apples. But I digress.
You want to know where to place the curved line? Anywhere you choose. There are some interesting psychological assertions about where one places a single object on a blank screen, but that’s another problem. We will stick with apples.
Okay, you placed the curve right in the center of the screen. Good. Now just look at that curved line. Don’t think about it, just look. See how you curved the line outwards, towards the edge of the screen? Excellent. You must have an instinct for apples. When you feel like it, continue the curved line. Up or down, it‘s up to you.
There you go. You have continued to curve the line upwards. Now, bring the curved line in, until the top of the line is at the same point on the canvas as the bottom, where you started the curve. Place a little stubby line at the top of the line. We call that a stem. You now have half an apple. Do the same thing downwards. Keep the down curve equal to the up curve, until the curved lines comes together and are joined at the bottom.
Amazing. You have the outline of an apple. Eggs? No, you would have curved the line differently for an egg. We call the shape of eggs `oval’ and that of apples `round’. You have just made a roundness, which is also named, `a circle.’ Of course, apples are not perfect circles, but they have the idea of a circle. They are rough circles.
Now, paint the rest of the canvas black. Don’t paint inside the curved line. Just leave the white canvas inside the line alone. Amazing, isn’t it? You just drew an apple in negative space, and you don’t even know what an apple is.
Of course you can’t hold this apple, it’s only a representation. An apple is smooth, though, and smells like autumn. Do you have seasons on Ten-Alp? No. Pity. Do you have trees? No. Well, it’s like this. When our sun begins to change course, our land cools. Our trees begin to lose their leaves, which fall off the tree branches and onto the ground. For this reason, we sometimes call autumn `fall’. And when this happens, the air is clear and clean, and smells like autumn leaves.
Oh, sorry. Of course you can’t understand that. Well, then, do you have clear water? You do? So imagine a deep pool of clear and cool and pure water. That’s how apples taste.
You’re welcome. Come back soon. We’ll do eggs.