RANDOM STORIES

A Fable I Heard About A Leaf

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful leaf, who was vibrantly green, and so wide sometimes she felt if the whole of the sun's light were to shine upon her, she could catch it with ease. She look up at the leaves above her and thought, 'look at them, just like me, though maybe not so green, and to be honest, neither so wide'. And she looked to the branches beneath her and thought, 'what a fate to be so gnarled and brown, so ugly and thin, it is only right that they are beneath such brilliance as myself'. And she looked at the roots below her and thought, 'how disgusting, to intimate yourself with the dirt, what a horrid mind they must have to not only be as ugly as the boughs, but to dig down into the mushroom riddled loam'. And she was content with this.
When the tree fruited, she praised herself for her handiwork, and when she thirsted, she cursed the roots for not taking in enough water, or the branches for not bringing her her fill.
But eventually, she began to feel frail and watched as all the other leaves began to leave the tree, and intimated themselves with the ground. She was aghast, and afraid. And soon, she was alone, and she didn't like that very much at all. So she too left her place and began to fall. But she was afraid, and called out to a branch to catch her, but he laughed as she fell, and said "Help you? A leaf? I would not touch such a distasteful green if my life depended on it."
And so she fell to the ground, where she found her friends. They had become brown, and fragile, and only now did she realize the leaves she fell on were long dead. She wept and wept as she realized she was alone still. She was so afraid of being alone, she at the last she called out to a root to be her friend. And the root said, "Friends? With a leaf? How silly. I would never be friends with something so ugly and temporary. Be glad, leaf, for with your last breath, at least you have made me laugh, and that is more than any would have expected."
And so she died. And rotted. And the tree grew new leaves, who in time, also fell. And time moved on.