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by beetle
Rated: E · Short Story · Nature · #2013219
Walking down Midwood Street, all I saw was falling showers of orange, gold, and red. . . .
Notes/Warnings: None.
Summary: Written for the prompt(s): Imagine that you are out in nature. Where are you and what do you see around you? Write a dialogue with some aspect of the scene.



I was walking down Midwood Street and all I saw was falling showers of orange, gold, and sometimes red.

The street was neatly-lined with attached brownstones, framing the scene like a cinematographer’s dream. Midwood Street was the only street in the world, and it was raining autumn.

I walked along, kicking up fallen bits of orange, gold, and sometimes red. Some of the bits were still edged or veined with the memory of green. I paused in the midst of my journey, halted by a large orange masterpiece, edged in red, but still a changeable green at the heart. It lay at the base of an old oak tree.

“Here, now,” I breathed in awe-filled wonder, as I bent to pick it up. Its stem was cool and smooth between my fingers, its orangey surface waxy and even, but for a few specks of easily brushed off grit. “What’s a lovely treasure like you doing on the cold, hard ground?”

“My time in the sun has passed,” it whispered like a churchyard ghost. Its spicy scent, like cinnamon and soil, wafted to me on a chilled zephyr. “I have lived and loved and grown. It is now my turn to join my brethren, back in the Earth from which we came.”

Holding that cinnamon scent in my lungs for a few moments, I finally exhaled. “Shall I take you home with me, instead? For I live in that grey stone house just over there. It’s warm and bright, and there’s plenty of fresh water and light, that you might live a while longer, yet.”

Between my first finger and thumb, the bit of orange, red, and green trembled, and spoke, its body flirting gracefully with the breeze.

“My time in the sun has passed,” it whispered again, not with sadness or resignation, but with certainty and finality. “I thank you for your generosity and your admiration, but I must join my brethren in the Earth, to nourish it so that one day, new life can spring from where I fell.”

I nodded once, a tear rolling down my face. I was saddened by its choice, but I understood. “Alright then. I shall leave you here, where I found you.”

And so saying, I bent to carefully place the bit of orange and red with a heart of green, at the base of the tree at which I’d found it. After taking another moment to admire it, I walked on toward my house. Toward home. It was the grey stone one in the middle of Midwood Street.

On the way, I kicked up fallen bits of orange, gold, and sometimes red. And all around me were falling showers of the same.

It was raining autumn, and Midwood Street was the only street in the world.

END
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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item.php/item_id/2013219-Leaves