Bob Falls into Autumn

Prompt: Write a poem or story about a leaf, one with a bouquet of colors and crinkly, crackly textures, a leaf with veins so startling you trace them with your finger, a leaf that suddenly whirls you into fall with a whish and a wish..

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“Oh honey,” I sighed, “summer’s over. I can feel the change in the air. It’s still warm, but the shadows are shifting and I can feel that bit of almost cold in the breeze. Can you feel it?”

“Uh-huh,” my husband said absently behind his morning paper.

“Don’t you wish we could go back east and see the fall colors?” I mused.

“That would be nice, dear.”

“Oh just think how beautiful it would be! All the reds, yellows, oranges and browns, mixed with the last of the greens—a  plethora of fall fire!

“We get an occasional deciduous tree,” I justified, “but the weather’s so screwy in So. California, the trees don’t know when to change. Their cycles are all off.”

"Tree menopause… I understand how you can relate.”

“Oh, quiet. You know what I mean.”

“Perhaps you should be talking to Bob,” he said dryly.

Bob, the stuffed toy buffalo our daughter left behind, surprisingly enough, housed a bona fide genie; albeit, when the genie comes to life it is in the form of a real live buffalo—size, smell, mange, wishes and all!

“Noo, silly. That’s not a good wish. Getting the trees all in sync? You know as well as I do, palm trees don’t do autumn.

“Oh, but honey,” I reminisced of the mid-west, “don’t you miss the autumn drill? Going back to school? The chill in the air? Getting out the sweaters? When you were a kid, did you ever jump into a pile of newly raked leaves? Remember how they crunch, and that delicious smell?” I was practically lying on the ground cushioned by a mound of crackling summers turned falls of days gone by. I couldn’t help thinking of the eventual bare-nakedness of the trees… then snow. Wow, the snow of so long ago.

“You seem to forget,” hubby said more to his paper than me, “I grew up here. The only colors are green, when it rains, and brown, when it doesn’t. I’m sure I jumped into a pile or two of itchy lawn clippings, but that’s about it.”

“Where’s your sense of romance? I pouted. “Oh, never mind, I’ll just look up pictures on the Internet.”

Standing head-and-shoulders above a litter of Beanie Baby pups my kids collected, Bob watched stoically from his perch atop the outdated 19” monitor as I fired up the desktop.

“Bob?” I queried wistfully, “How good are you at trees and fall color?”

I ran a Google image search.

I almost immediately came across a beautiful photo of a tree-lined rural lane. “Wow,” I thought out loud, “I wish I could just walk down that path right now. Just to see where it leads!”

Whoosh!

I looked around incredulously. “No way,” I said under my breath. I was there!

I could feel the crisp air. Smell a different, yet wonderfully natural, earthy freshness of mulch and past rains. The colors were exploding above, around and under me. The peacefulness of the morning was broken only by the movement of my feet as dared move forward.

“Dang it, Bob! You did this, didn’t you?” I asked rhetorically.

“Geeze, isn’t this magnificent?” I regaled as I twirled around twice, arms extended.

I sloshed a few feet forward in the fallen leaves. Elders, ash, birch, elm, and trees I didn’t recognize enveloped me and the path like a fog of fiery colors. Every step a sensation in sound and wonder.

I forged ahead totally awe of every squirrel, bird, leaf, branch and critter, the likes of which I did not see at home.

The path took a turn exposing a narrow covered bridge ahead the likes of which Ichabod may have strived to cross before whatever unknown fate overtook him.

“Bob,” I whispered, “this is incredible, thank you!”

I laughed as I approached the lonely structure thinking of the haunting Saturday Night Live skit I saw long ago. A parody of the Raid Roach Motel, "Bugs check in but they don’t check out." Instead, "joggers jog in," only to be eternally stuck on the fly paper surface of the road, "but they don’t jog out."

Yet, inside the non-illuminated, non-adhesive, centuries-year-old bridge, the smell of well-fermented horse droppings and dankness hung almost sweetly under the sturdy cedar cover.

I sucked it all up and moved out into the spectral fire cooled by the autumn air.

“Oh,” I said to myself, “if only my dear husband could see this!” I was careful NOT to use the “double-u” word and waste another wish. But I was also grateful that I used a wish, although inadvertently, on myself.

I strolled further down the path covering what seemed miles and never wanting to turn back.

After what seemed like hours, I finally sat to rest on a fallen tree next to a lively brook. The shadows grew long and the air chilling. Sighing, yet in total bliss, I mentioned to my surroundings, “I just can’t wait to write about this! Oh, I hope my husband isn’t too worried; I’ve been gone so long. I wish I could tell him now.“

Whoosh!

Oops. There I was, back in front of my computer in the kitchen.

Hubby still behind his paper.

“Honey, you won’t believe what just happened!” I swooped on his lap giving him a big hug. “I saw all the fall colors—it was magnificent! Did you miss me?”

He lowered his paper and gave me a full-on, one-eye browed,” are you crazy?” look.

“But I was gone for such a long time!” I cried, my arms wrapped around his neck, “and all I wanted to do was to share it with you!”

“And did you click your heels three times, Dorothy, and chant, ‘There’s no place like home?’”

“In a way, I suppose I did. But, I didn’t want to leave either. Oh, I love you so much!” I gave him another huge squeeze and a serious kiss.

With a somewhat reluctant but sincere smile he relented, “Fall color it is. Bob, you win, book the flight.”

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Word count: 1000