October 12, 2014

From “Leaf Kinetics” by Nick A. Stiefel

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Lots of kids stomp the fall leaves in their yard.

Especially after you’ve been raking, there’s no more tempting thing for a small child. With no snow on the ground, they’re just drawn to those fireworks of foliage. Evan was no different; I watched the leaves fly about with pleasant crunches as he stomped. I suppose I might have been angry since I’d spent all morning getting them into a pile, but I wasn’t.

Lots of kids stomp the fall leaves in their yard.

People have told me, in retrospect, about the time when they realized their children were…special. Everyone has their own story about what first caused them to sit up and take notice of the differences, what set their child apart for the others. For me, and for Evan, it was that fall day when he got into the leaves, just as the first snap of cold was creeping into the air. It wasn’t anything in the way he was playing, or yelling, or something like that.

No, I first knew Evan was special when I stood there in the window, watching the leaves fly about outside crushed and flaking, while Evan stomped energetically on the kitchen floor directly behind me.

Lots of kids stomp the fall leaves in their yard.

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November 14, 2012

From “Leaves of the Book of Life” by Charles S. Myrick

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“I am…a leaf collector. Of sorts.” Ingram straightened a bit to encompass the room with a sweeping gesture before returning with a grunt to his usual stooped-over posture.

Ross was nearly speechless. “They…they’re beautiful.” Leaves of every shape and size danced on the walls and froms strings in the air. Most were pressed flat, with a slight acrylic sheen, and all had either a letter or a simple picture cut out of them.

“Wherever I go, I cannot help but collect a handful of leaves here and there,” Ingram said, a note of pride detectable in his voice. “Then I return home to my flower press, and once they are flattened I craft the leaves into art or a message that most associates itself with where they were collected.”

“May I take a look?”

“Please.”

Faded by age and lit into translucency by the late afternoon sun, the most conspicuously displayed leaves each bore one letter of the word LOVE.

“I proposed to my wife on a fall day, in a park,” said Ingram, following Ross’s gaze. “I took two handfuls that day; the second is with her, in the Alzheimer’s home.”

“What about that one?” Ross pointed at a phrase arced across the wall: WEALTH.

“From my first business trip to Japan. The businessmen over there thought it terribly unlucky and inauspicious.”

Suspended in the far corner of the room, the shadow hiding the monofilament wire: LOSS.

Ross examined it, brow knitted.”Your wife?”

“No, she’ll get her own when I finally…lose…her,” Ingram sighed. “That’s something else entirely. Something much darker. Perhaps when I know you a little better you can hear the story.”

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