The Stories of an Immortal

The Leaf

When I first heard it, it was so thin I thought it was paper. Paper waving in the wind.

But then I realised it wasn't paper, it was a leaf.

Not a leaf turning brown, but a leaf turning green.

A leaf growing into more leaves, until there's so many that they turn into a tree.

And the tree keeps growing, bigger and bigger, getting stronger and stronger, so that when the wind blows again the only thing that moves are the leaves right at the top.

And then nothing.

Until a flicker captures my eye.

There's a leaf on the floor.

A brown one.

One that shouldn't belong. And yet it flies.

It soars higher than any leaf has before, climbing all the way up the tree, trying in vain to stick onto one of the other leaves.

The wind picks up again, it flies in the wrong direction, struggles to stay on course. Can it make it? Is time running out?

It keeps going, not giving up, going, going...

Gone. Swept away with the wind into the sea. But the sea moves too. Maybe one day it will find its way back to land, back to its home.