The Summer of Green Pears

by Carle P. Graffunder

It was the summer of green pears. Pears didn’t ripen. Rain did not fall. Streams dried up. Green pears, small, tough-skinned, and split open, fell like rain. But there was no rain.

Summer sun and summer heat, long pent, burst confinement. Week after week, day upon day, sun poured forth hour and hour and hour of eye-blurring heat.

Green pears fell like rain to the ground. But there was no rain. No low-lying cloud slaked thirst of twig or tree. Occasional devil dogs languidly rattled dead leaves trying desperately to cling to branches.

So it was that pears remained green and skimpy. From drooping branches unripe fruit with open wounds pelted the parched earth beneath. Dry leaves, desiccated and crinkled by sun, crunched under foot like soda crackers.

Pears were green and fell like rain. But there was no rain. Green pears fell. They were dried-up and small and hard with long, deep gashes because there was no rain and summer had been very hot for a very long time.