The Apple Oracle

You come across a peculiar apple tree in the middle of a misty orchard. Next to it is a stone structure, its interior dark, with its opening facing the tree. It’s the only structure of its kind you can see, some kind of place for storage and preservation. You can’t explain it, but somehow you know you must step inside the structure. Something there is important to you right here, right now.

As you draw closer, cool shaded air seeps from the stone and makes your arm hairs prickle, even though the day is warm. As you register the temperature change, an ancient apple spirit emerges from the shadows, glowing in the dark and spinning in fast circles as if swinging by the top of its stem. With each rotation, you see what appears to be a worm whipping past, although it’s not the kind of worm you would typically see inside of an apple…

You have found the Apple Oracle, and it has a story to share with you today.

The Apple Oracle says:

Not everything that looks shiny and ripe on the outside is the same once you get under the surface. Still, many people are fooled by outward appearances, mesmerized by pretense and attracted to a nice-looking façade. The signs are there - of rot, of spoilage, of toxic material, of poisoned offerings. Of something very wrong under the seemingly wholesome exterior.

They can smell it, the off-ness of it all. Something turns their stomach, makes them pause just an instant before they override their deeper senses. And then, since they can’t tell just by looking where the stink is stemming from, they believe assurances that everything is fine. They continue to feed themselves a diet of undetected ruin until they get sick.

Because you are here, you have sniffed this before. The secret sludge of something that looks delicious on the outside, but is actually putrefied at its core. It’s not a natural rot. Natural rot isn’t tasty-looking. It shows itself. It doesn’t pretend to be anything but the organic process that it is.

But something that’s been tampered with, something that wants to appear enticing so it can take and siphon and destroy… well, Snow White could probably tell us now that the poisoned apple actually had a particular scent to it.

You’ve been there too, or you’re there now. You understand that the secret sludge is often hidden inside an offering of a gift, a treat, a delight, something to be desired. Something you’re made to believe you should feel lucky to have received. Maybe it’s a job. Maybe it’s a relationship. Maybe it’s an opportunity. Maybe it’s a position of status. Maybe it’s literally an object meant to control the narrative. In any case, it’s presented as something amazing just for you. But the gift comes with a cost - your sanity, your health, your values, your sense of self.

Once you survive the poison apple once, you know what it is. It’s easier to smell it. But the false fruits also get more clever in their disguise, their toxicity hidden deeper down in the seeds. It takes special trust in yourself and what you’ve experienced in this life to tell a true, crunchy, fresh apple right from the tree versus something that’s been altered and delivered with sinister intent.

And it takes even more trust in yourself afterward to remember that most apples are real apples. They grow, they taste good, they’re good to eat. You can accept them without concern or overthinking their origins.

The fake ones may get shinier, juicier, more covetable - they try harder to get you to take their bait as you get more familiar with their tricks. You’re someone who can sort them easily now, though. If not by looks then by weight, by feel, by that distinctive smell that your body understands before your nose fully does.

Just because one apple is rotten doesn’t mean every apple in the orchard is. But when you come across a bad one, now you can spot it immediately, say no thank you, and toss it before it has a chance to spoil anything at all.

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About the Oracles
Bailey Lewis - the voice behind and creator of Found Oracles - is an award-winning writer, multimedia storyteller, and owner of Bailey Sends Word Story Studio.

Visit the Bailey Sends Word Story Studio site for more stories steeped in modern mythos - work exploring intuition, mystical encounters in the everyday, and how the stories we tell ourselves create our reality.