A BITE OF THE APPLE

Aren’t doctors supposed to be good for you, class?

I have always enjoyed idioms and sayings, which is why I have a few books in my personal library that deal with the proverb and its place in society. One looks at the history and attempts to understand where they came from and how they have transformed into what we know today. One of the phrases I have found myself looking at recently is “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”.

The proverb is thought to have originated in Wales in the 1860s, where it was common to eat fresh or fried apple filled with caraway seeds just before bed. Caraway is a biennial plant that at the time was thought to hold a lot of healthy qualities, and the apple was used as a way to consume as much caraway as possible. The apple was just a misdirect for another substance to improve the health.

The fun fact is that based on this proverb, scientific studies have since found that apples themselves prevent strokes and lower cholesterol, although no link could be found between the frequency of apples eaten and visits to a physician. So although an apple a day does not keep the doctor away, the apple is still good for you.

But I thought back deeper, back to the Garden of Eden, when the apple was used to tempt Adam and Eve into committing the original sin, and my mind was suddenly opened. The proverb is not a true proverb, it was planted! The reason the saying is centuries old is because someone entered it into use, purposefully.

As we discussed, the apple does not keep the doctor away – it was never intended to. The apple is a trap, dangled on a stick in place of a carrot, to trick the unsuspecting. For the apple poisons your mind, like it did with Adam and Eve, into believing things it never usually would. Things like eating the apple is the right thing to do. Things like slicing open your flesh in the vague hope it will bring your friend back from the dead.

The Good Doctor, Isaac Danvers, used the sweet apple of grief to lure me into a proposition I never intended to participate in, but the lure was far too strong for me and I gave in, weak to the powers he imbued in it, just as Eve was weak too. I sank my teeth into the ripe, juicy apple, and even as the juice ran down my chin I knew I had made a mistake.

An apple a day does nothing but keep the Doctor close, and that is dangerous, for the Doctor is a wild and unruly being, who wants nothing more than to experiment on those around him. But I have seen that the apple is rotten to the core, and I cannot take another bite now that I have gazed on the mould and maggots.

And like the snake was cursed to slither for carrying the vessel of sin to Adam and Eve, Isaac Danvers will be cursed for carrying the vessel of misplaced grief to me.