Her Eyes

Four

The leaf was a part of a family. It grew from its mother, the tree, and lived peacefully with its thousands of siblings. They swayed in the wind happily during the nice spring breeze before burning up during the summer and begging for rain to fall from the sky above.

When autumn came, it was cool again, but too cool. The leaf shivered in the sudden coldness it experienced for the first time, watching as a few of its mature siblings fell from the tree, blowing through the wind. The leaf wanted to follow them, but it was too young to fall.

The leaf suffered through the lonely winter snow, the sun never coming out. There were times when animals would trot by, stopping to urinate on its mother. It was only until the 19th spring did the leaf finally fall off its branch.

It said goodbye to its mother and baby siblings, blowing in the gentle breeze and following the other leaves in the current, allowing the cool air to take it wherever it wanted.

As the leaf traveled, it saw many things. During the summer, it stopped by a large city and saw people sitting outside under large sun cantilever umbrellas, wearing short clothes that exposed their skin and drinking iced tea and coffee. It was later blown away by another breeze of wind which took it farther. It watched from the air as children wearing thin clothes and sandals played football, kicking the ball around and screeching at the top of their lungs when they scored.

During the autumn, people began bundling up more and the wind picked up harshly. The leaf was blown to a freezing climate where people wore thick clothes and boots even inside tall buildings. They drank dark brown liquid steaming out of a cup. The leaf wanted a taste. Winter came again, the leaf's worst season and the leaf was buried under layers of snow in the middle of nowhere. Not even the wind could save it until spring came and the snow thawed.

It was only until summer that the leaf felt warm again and watched as more children played games outside and couples went on dates. They spoke a language, but the leaf couldn't decipher the strange noises coming out of their mouths. It didn't make sense to the leaf.

During the 21st spring, the leaf settled in a nice opening where there were little to no animals and plenty of leaves lived on the trees. The leaf wanted to communicate with them, but it didn't understand what they were saying. It was a foreign language to them, something completely out of the norm. There, the leaf sat on the ground helplessly, waiting for the wind to pick up and blow it away. Maybe, it would find its way home again.

Unfortunately, no matter how much the wind picked up, the leaf never moved, for there was a twig sitting on it. The leaf argued with the twig, but it didn't move, saying the wind would have to be stronger to pick it up. The leaf sat there for weeks, waiting for the wind to get stronger. It never did.

In the summer, when the weather was hot and the leaves cried about the heat, a large shadow came over the leaf's figure and stepped on it, crunching the twig that sat on it. The large object moved and the leaf cheered happily, not caring that the twig died a tragic death. Unknowingly, the leaf was picked up and met with large blue eyes twirling it around.

The leaf felt the wind picking up for a moment, but it couldn't move, now ensnared with a new enemy. The leaf was tucked into a deep pocket and the light it once knew as home disappeared.

After a while, the leaf could see light again, though it wasn't natural. It didn't come from the sun, it came from strange objects hanging from the ceiling of a room. The leaf was plucked again and trapped in a weird case, unable to move. It met with the deep blue eyes of the strange human that stole it from its natural habitat and was left alone.

「⸙͎」

Ever since it was kept captive in the home of the mysterious man, the leaf chose to observe his actions, falling in love with the species. It found the way they moved interesting and thought their legs and fingers were very useful.