A Leaf's Tale

The others shake nervously around me. Fall has arrived, and we are dying. We fall from our homes, the supple branches that have fed us our entire lives, leaving our friends behind as we float slowly to the ground. The humans walk around our bodies as we wither away on the pavement. Sometimes they rake us into piles with long, spiked tools, often tearing us apart, piece by piece. We watch as our friends leave us, picked from the piles and thrown into containers of our dead cousins, the clipped grass, and dissipating petals of once fragrant blooms. I am a leaf.

Once, when I was younger, my friends and I had recently come into bud, and we filled with precious water and nutrients, a giant, a beast of gargantuan size, ripped hundreds of us from our tree. It climbed through the strong, thick branches, gaining footing over our heads, breaking the humble roots of my neighbors. The giant laughed with its comrades while my friends, loved ones, lost their lives to its careless malevolence. It jumped down from the lowest branch, shaking the tree until it stalked away, leaving us to deal with the aftermath of its intrusion. I have never forgotten the danger of humans, but now, as I lie awaiting my demise, watching my friends as they fall to their ends, I am afraid only of oblivion. I will never again feel the warmth of the sun embracing the rolling bends of my figure. I wilt in my sadness at the realization of my parting with my lifelong companions.

The day has I finally fall has arrived at last. My roots have broken, and I hang idly in expectance of the moment when a single gust of wind blows me away, but in my anticipation, I fail to notice as one of the giants creeps up below me. The she-beast reaches high above her head, wrapping her fingers around me, yanking me from my branch; a solitary bead of water drips from my folds. But I am surprised, I expected her to rip me to shreds or throw me into a trash bin, but instead she carries me in soft, cupped hands, hurrying through the crowded school walkways. Suddenly I feel a stuffiness envelop me as she sits in a kind of metal, human tree.

"Hi Suman," a great, high pitched voice rings through the tree, "how was your day sweetie?"

The girl opens her hands, forcing me into the dull light, "I had fun! But mommy, look, look what I found for you! Isn't it pretty! It's red, just like your favorite lipstick."

"Oh it's beautiful honey. We can take it home and put it in the scrapbook, that way, you'll be able to keep it forever."

The humans' words feel foreign, but the way they talked sounded lovely, the way my tree used to sing in the wind. I feel strangely at home, and when she called me pretty, I thought, "Maybe being with them forever won't be so bad after all."