It started raining apples on a Tuesday. Not metaphorical ones, not the kind you make mental jam with later. Actual apples. Red, green, gold, a few bruised from altitude. They thudded into the street like soft hail and rolled into gutters.
I was at the café, the only one in town that thinks latte art counts as religion. When the first apple hit the window, I thought someone was playing a joke. Then another landed, then three. A cluster of high schoolers on the corner cheered as if fireworks were shooting off above them. Someone yelled “Free fruit!” and ran into traffic.
We’re not big on miracles in this part of the world. We’ve got potholes, power outages, raccoons, coyotes, and the occasional black bear, but nothing that drops Granny Smiths from the clouds. Still, everyone ran outside. The barista grabbed an umbrella, which was instantly rendered useless. The apples came down like marbles in a jar. They weren’t falling at anyone, though. They bounced off awnings and parked cars but never hit a person directly. As if they had manners.
I picked one up. It was warm, but not sun-warm, more heart-warm. The skin shimmered faintly, like it had been kissed by a rainbow no one else noticed.
That should have been the weird part but when I turned it over, I saw words burned into the peel. Not written, not carved. Etched.
It said: “Don’t take the night shift,” which was unhelpfully vague advice for someone who works freelance from her couch.
By the time the local police showed up—one car, lights politely flashing—the street looked like an abandoned orchard. Apples covered the pavement in uneven mosaics of color. Kids were collecting them in bike helmets and backpacks. Old Mrs. Haskell from the library filled her rolling walker basket and muttered about pie crust ratios.
Someone handed me another apple. This one had writing, too: “Say yes this time.”
And just like that, the miracle turned personal.
By late afternoon, the whole town was covered in fruit. Highway crews blocked the on-ramp because the apples kept bouncing onto the interstate. The mayor went on local radio, sounding far too chipper. “We encourage citizens to harvest responsibly,” she said, “and remember: one per person until we understand what we’re dealing with.”
As if this were a civic emergency and not the most interesting thing that had ever happened. here. (And no one stuck to picking up just one.)
At home, I lined up my apples on the kitchen counter. There were ten of them, each with a message. Some were bossy: “Go home.” “Stay.” “Turn left.” Others were tender: “Call her back.” “The cat forgives you.”
One just said, “Wednesday.” That one glowed faintly when I turned off the lights.
I know, I know. I should’ve called someone. The news stations, maybe the agricultural department, the guy who had that podcast about paranormal produce. But the truth is, it felt private. Like the universe had decided to pass me a note and was trusting me not to share it.
So I sat at my kitchen table and read them again, trying to piece together some narrative, as if they were tarot cards instead of fruit.
That’s when my phone buzzed.
It was my ex, Leah, who had moved two towns over for a “change of scenery” and a woman who owned a food truck. “Crazy weather you’re having,” she texted.
I typed back before I could stop myself: “You’d love it. It’s raining apples.”
She called instantly. “You okay?”
“Define okay.”
There was a pause. “You sound… happy.”
And I realized I was. I hadn’t felt light in months. Not since the slow ending, the furniture split, the weird polite silences.
“Maybe it’s the vitamin C,” I said.
She laughed, the kind of laugh that used to undo me. Then she said, “You should come by. Wednesday? I’ll make something apple adjacent.”
I looked at the counter. At the glowing fruit. Wednesday.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think I will.”
The next morning, the apples were gone.
Not stolen—gone. No cores in the trash, no sticky spots on the sidewalk, nothing. Just clean streets and confused pedestrians looking up at blank skies.
The mayor declared it a “localized meteorological anomaly” and promised a commemorative plaque. The café printed “We Survived the Great Apple Fall” mugs. By Thursday, life had folded itself back into normal, the way it always does after magic: quickly, almost gratefully.
But one apple remained—the glowing one.
It doesn’t rot. It just sort of… hums, sometimes… like a faraway cello. I keep it on the windowsill by my plants. When sunlight hits it, the words vanish, replaced by faint rings of light, like ripples on water.
I don’t know what any of it means. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe the sky just needed to empty itself of fruit.
Still, on Wednesday, I drove to Leah’s. The sunset was the exact color of Honeycrisp skin, and the world smelled faintly of sugar. She opened the door with flour on her hands and that familiar raised eyebrow.
“Brought dessert?” she teased.
“Sort of,” I said, and held up the apple.
Her smile softened, like a chord resolving.
And for just a heartbeat, I could swear I heard something—a faint sound above us, high and far away, like applause carried on wind.
But then, it’s not as if the earth can read a calendar, and even if the day was warm, by five-thirty the light was pale and thin, and there was an edge to the heat. 