The Leaves
by Barnali Saha
I often wonder how the little stretch of green looks different everyday. Sometimes on sunny gold morns it is a brilliant shade of sap green, and sometimes on cloudy afternoons and dusky evenings it is grumpy and plain old sad. I especially think a lot about the fallen leaves that lie like dead copses in a battle ground. They have been lying there for God knows how long; I wonder why somebody doesn't remove them. I guess people just do not pay any attention to those undying dead leaves. They are an eyesore to me. Everyday I just have to look at their ugly scary faces gazing at me with their bulbous lids.Oh! I cannot stand them. Look at them now after feeding on a sumptuous lunch of healthy afternoon rain, they are fat and brown. One of them, which is especially closer to my view, is contorted like a man who had fallen off a roof and had twisted his limbs.
Seasons come and seasons go and we try to skip our grieves to adapt ourselves to the new season and forget about the old one. But every time we do that we end up realizing that we were stupid enough to forget something that is downright unforgettable. These leaves are the lost characters of one such despicable mortal psychomyth one which has no ending. One which is always there, everyday to remind em of my failures.
I often feel that they are immutable and therefore indestructible. Sometimes when I sit next to the glass window and see them almost on the verge of diminishing under the blades of green grass, I feel so relieved. The very idea that may be it is time for them to be annihilated from my view, naturally, is enough to excite my delightful imagination. I arrange my thoughts of a crisp green meadow with no dead leaf topping on it. Oh! how attractive the green is with no blemished leaf peopling its face. I almost get intoxicated with desire. But the annihilation never happens. Every time the morning dies down and evening licks its lips and the frowning leaves are always there , disheveled and dead as always.
I look at them, dumbfounded, trying to decipher their meaning of their cruel presence. I always knew that when your little drama of life ends you are no longer a active protagonist in our society. You are eliminated from the game, your being is abscised. You have no work in the world anymore; this is the natural order, one that you must punctiliously follow.
It is understandable for you to question the established order; but what is the use? You are no saint, no politician either, mere dead leaves. In any case your exaggerated and unnatural presence is invisible to most of the world. They all strive to eliminate your misleading moves. Moves, ha! Only if you could move. All you do is lie in that sloppy grass bed and stare at me with hat strange look. As if you expect me to manipulate your delightful half-dead-half- alive scheme. Leave those artful pretenses for God's sake. I am not interested in your miscellaneous defunct facts. What use are your trifles to me? Your illogical presence. Nobody would ever notice you; what revelation can 'You' bring?
See, you cannot even speak.You, a mass of uncharacteristic retrograded melody. You would lie there forever, although I so wish that you wouldn't. You would skillfully kill the green grass with your cantankerous touch and nobody would notice it. The grass would never spring to life, not even in summer. They are destined to die, each one of them, and stare at me, just like you, with their cold dead eyes.
Barnali: I am a creative writer from Kolkata, India. Currently I am living in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. I enjoy writing short stories, travelogues and articles on social issues. My works have been published in The Statesman, The Indian Express, Woman's Era, DNA-ME, and Muse India Literary Journal in India and in Mused--Bella Online Literary Review, Long Story Short, Pens on Fire, Many Midnights, and Palki in the USA. I would like to submit one of my latest short stories (The Leaves) for your perusal. I'll be obliged if you kindly consider my contribution for your highly esteemed literary magazine. Contact Barnali.
