🍎 An Apple Riddle for Grown-Ups Who’ve Kissed a Few Rotten Ones

Long ago—or perhaps just outside of time—there lived a child who found themselves

wrapped in a quiet afternoon without a schedule. The light slanted gently through the window, but the crayons and toys seemed dull. The child wandered to their mother and said, not with complaint but with yearning,

“Momma, I'm so bored. What do I do?”

The mother looked up from her work, her hands still warm with purpose, and smiled the way mothers do when they are about to offer wisdom rather than a solution. She leaned in and spoke softly, as though the house itself were meant to hear:

“I have a mission for you. Go and find me a little red house. It has no windows and no doors, but it has a chimney, and inside there is a star.”

The words shimmered in the air. A task given. A journey had begun.

🌬️ The Adventure in Seeking

The child set out, because that is what one does when given a true question. They asked a girl riding by on her bicycle, who laughed and shrugged and said, “Try asking my father, the farmer—he knows the land.” The farmer wiped his hands on his trousers, gazed out over the fields, and said, “Such things belong to those who listen deeply. Go to the wise woman.”

The wise woman sat near the edge of the village, her eyes bright as morning dew, gazing at the horizon. She listened without interrupting, then nodded.

“You must ask the wind.”

And so the child climbed the hill at the edge of the apple orchard, where the trees stood like old storytellers and the air made music for the winged dancers. The child sat among the grass and blossoms and spoke their question to the breeze—not demanding, but curious. And the wind did not answer with words. Instead, it stirred the branches, whispered through the leaves… and loosened an apple from its place. Down it fell, softly, directly into the child’s lap. The child held it. Smooth. Red. Perfectly ordinary. Feeling both puzzled and quietly certain that something had happened. The child carried the apple home.

🔪 The Reveal

The mother smiled.

“Well done,” she said. The child blinked with trust and hope. This? This was the house? The mother took a knife and sliced the apple horizontally. And there it was. A perfect five-pointed star, glowing softly in the center. No windows. No doors. A chimney on top. A star within.

✨ What This Has to Do With Love

(and Why This Is Not a Children’s Story Anymore)

As kids, this riddle teaches wonder. As adults, it teaches discernment. Because here’s the part we learn the hard way: Not all apples are stars. Some apples look shiny, sweet, and promising on the outside—and when life (or intimacy, or conflict, or commitment) slices them open? Rot. Mold. The smell of “oh no, I ignored that red flag.” And you can’t always tell by looking. You only find out by testing—by relationship, by time, by pressure, by honesty. That doesn’t make you naïve. It makes you human.

🍏 The Other Truth (The One About You)

There’s another reason this story matters. Sometimes we are the apple. Not rotten—just… bored. Disconnected. Going through the motions. Forgetting that we were ever magic. Love can get stale. Desire can go quiet. Wonder can slip into routine and responsibility and “Is this all there is?”

Until something cuts us open again. A question. A rupture. A truth. A moment of wild emotion. And suddenly—there it is. The star we forgot was inside us.

🌬️ The Wind (Life's Mystery) Still Knows

The wind didn’t tell the child the answer. It dropped the experience into their lap. Which is how life still works. Love will test. Truth will reveal. And wonder waits patiently for us to remember how to look deeply at the ordinary.

🖤 A Closing Question (For Grown-Ups Only)

• Where in your life are you mistaking shiny for true?

• Where have you decided something is “boring” when it’s actually unopened?

• And what might be revealed if you dared to look inside—yourself or another—without illusion?

Because some houses don’t look like much. Until you cut them open.

🍎✨

P.S. I dare you to make the cut and see if your next apple knows the 'secret'!