“I Exist”
Pippa Possible
Response

Nasturtiums
By Amy Souza
Inspiration piece

Certainly vines had been creeping forth in the days prior to my noticing, but it was as if the nasturtiums appeared out of nowhere. One day barren earth; the next, lush greenery reaching out onto the patio, bright orange and yellow flowers poking heads toward the sky.

The flowers taste peppery and burn floral essence into nasal passages. This I know is true, though I can’t recall a specific instance when I’ve plucked a flower and placed it on my tongue. Glancing out the window that first early day, I felt a jolt at the sight of them, and then I felt crazy. Had I planted nasturtiums? Watered them? Watched them sprout? I wondered if a secret being hid inside me and snuck out to sow seeds as a message: I exist.

While I sleep the nasturtiums travel, furtive, their tendrils seeking support to climb upon. They find the narrow metal stake that holds up a battered, unused screen porch and claim it for themselves. Now I greet them as I turn on the electric kettle each morning. Water begins to boil and I scan the yard to see how far the stems have traveled. Sometimes they grow a foot in one day.

Meanwhile, the world moves around me. I hear cars in the distance and imagine drivers hurrying to important places. Somewhere close by, a shovel scratches loose rock. The whine of a lawn mower. Aroma of cut grass and gasoline.

I remember that feeling of purpose. Once I had things to do, too. Though not old, I feel archaic and worn. Never know how to go on, how to keep waking up. In the morning, when I do rouse, I often surprise myself by still being here. And yet here I am.

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“Flowers Abstract”
Cathy Stevens Pratt
Inspiration piece

Mom’s Bouquet
by Pippa Possible
Response

The sun is already warm and bright by eleven in the morning, and the blue of the sky seems more saturated than I am used to. I am struck by how luminous the light quality is, in my home town.

The assembled guests have brought food and folding chairs, which play a slow-moving game of follow the shade, throughout the afternoon. I do not sit, but instead spend the hours floating a few inches above the earth, as I progress through the concerned faces offering hugs.

N. with her wide smile and tender eyes, embraces me and transfers to me a Mason jar, containing a bouquet arranged with flowers, that she picked this morning in her garden.

Anyone who knows Mom well will see that this arrangement has been picked with her in mind. The palette of the flowers and foliage is rich, deep, dark burgundy and bright crimson, with variations of green and accents of chartreuse. The flowers have been arranged with great care to appear effortlessly elegant, a bit wild and frayed at the edges, with fronds that remind me of her hair.

Mom would have appreciated this gesture from N. and would have taken time to contemplate the bouquet, using the majority of her senses. She would have made a sensory note of the aromas, likely deeply inhaling the bouquet, followed by a tremendous, whole-body sneeze. It smells more green than floral.

She would have caressed the blossoms, noticing that many share a tactile quality with various textiles. The petals of some flowers glint in the sun, and are light and soft like silk charmeuse, fluttering in the breeze. Other flowers are heavy, fuzzy baubles, like velvety chenille. Tickling wisps of foliage peek out, resemble delicate hand-tatted lace work.

She would have analyzed the choices made, and asked N. about any species with which she was unfamiliar, pulling a notebook and pen out of her purse to write down the names, for future reference. Mom took lots of notes and made numerous lists. Sorting through her belongings, we are finding many incomprehensible notes, and scribbles, lacking in context, which is in itself both frustrating and charming. Mom would have loved her bouquet.

I am having a difficult time adjusting to Mom in the past tense. My use of “would have” feels incomprehensible and absurd, and it rings untrue. Partly because her death was so unexpected and sudden, and partly because Mom permeates so much of my existence. Her influence is in my wardrobe and belongings, my cooking, my gardening, my tastes. She seems to occasionally take up space in my body, inhabiting my facial expressions and hand gestures.

The idea of filling in for Mom, as she exists now, as a person who once was, and maintaining an integral idea of her, while she is no longer in a position to be in charge of deciding what she likes; the idea that we are somehow supposed to take up adequate authorship of her tastes, and desires, seems absurd. We are charged with laboring the incompatible, somehow simultaneously preserving and embellishing the narrative script of Mom, as time passes. The process of “keeping her memory alive” is fraught with a deep sense of inadequacy. How can we possibly sustain a comprehensive idea of her, as she was, while also declaring that she would love a bouquet made posthumously in her honor? It is so strange, when I really think about it. And yet, I know that Mom would have loved her bouquet. I suppose through life we hope to impart enough about ourselves, to our loved ones, so that they can presume to know. People know variations of Mom.

I do not belong in this narrative. Mom and I continue to belong in and exist in the timeline that we were in the day before she died, when we had a standing date for lunch. It feels like I woke up one morning having jumped to another dimension. Which, to be frank, is what happened. I awoke to a series of alerts on my phone, from my sister. Mom had suddenly fallen over in the kitchen, and in that moment, our entire world was transformed.

At the wake, I float through the concerned faces offering hugs, and seem to be continually clutching this Mason jar with this bouquet for Mom, who is no longer with us. Someone (who? when?) rearranges the table of photographs and memorabilia and Mom’s buttons, to make room for the bouquet, managing to disengage the jar from my grasp, as I distractedly talk with another mourner.

I contemplate Mom’s belongings – buttons and single earrings who years ago lost their mate, vintage lace and tablecloths, notebooks with lists. Each one is a variation of Mom. I ponder physical objects belonging to, and even more strangely, being given to, one who no longer inhabits physical form. Flowers are a fitting gift for a dead person, as they also have a life trajectory, with an inescapable transition to dust. This bouquet is also a gift to us, the living, the ones who know Mom and recognize variations of her in each selected stem.

It is suggested by someone that we preserve the bouquet, in some way. To preserve is to halt or delay the process of inevitable transition to dust. We decide to press them. To preserve these flowers in such a way as to suspend them, pause them, and their vibrant colors, in time. To pause life and flatten time, with the exertion of tension on mass.

A few days pass, and in my haze the night before flying back home, I find a notebook in which to inadequately begin the process of pressing Mom’s bouquet. I snip the flowers from their stems, and place each between individual pages. I will have to ask N. at some point soon (my sister and I seem to be collecting “at some point soons” these days), to tell me the names of each plant, so that I can keep note.

Halfway through the process, the notebook is bulging, and escapees are littering the bedspread and floor. I somehow manage to finish and wrap it up, en masse, with ribbon, which, as I am on a blow-up mattress in the home of my achingly awkward youth, brings to mind the act of squeezing my belly into tight jeans before school.

I ask Dad if he would please stack a few large heavy books on top of the bulging book of flowers, and send it back to me, when they have adequately dried and flattened a bit.

I have a flower press at home. Mom gave it to me as a gift, when I was a child. It has an illustration of a borage plant, on the front, and mustard yellow sheets of paper. The press is now thirty years old. I am thirty-eight years old. The flowers are a few days old. Mom was sixty-nine years old up until a few days ago. When she turned sixty-four years old, we were driving around and she was humming the Beatles song, and I turned to her and said “I will always still need you, Mom.” and as sappy and orchestrated as that moment felt, it was also tender, and necessary and quite meaningful. And it remains true.

Tomorrow morning I will stuff my clothes back into my suitcase, and fly back home. When the flowers arrive, I will do my best to effectively press them, using the appropriate equipment. Mom was always best at knowing what would be needed, at times like these.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Inspiration Piece

Meriosis and The Remnant

Nancy Claeys

Response

Transgression

Meriosis was born the son of Zeus and Nelipita, a mortal.  Believing that her son was the true heir to Mount Olympus, Nelipita begged Zeus to bestow upon their son a section of humanity to watch over, to prove his worth.

BR Belletryst
Strays
Response

Lena (coda).
By Jozelle Dyer
Inspiration piece

Lena wanted a baby.  It was a problem.  Heather didn’t want children and—more—she didn’t understand Lena’s desperate desire to have a child of her own.  Lena was used to going along with whatever Heather said.  Heather had saved her: given her a home, and a family, and a purpose in life.  Before that, Lena had just been drifting along, not knowing why she made slicing cuts on belly and breasts, not knowing why she smoked, or did drugs, or why she fought with her parents.

“Do you want to be a cliché?” Heather’s smoky voice had laughed.

She’d taken Lena to the house, washed the dye from her hair, held her head when she puked.  Lena had been there ever since.  Betty and Sam called her Heather’s little shadow, but Lena didn’t mind.  Not so long as Heather talked to her in that smoky voice, and touched her—loved her—with those strong hands, that crooked mouth.

Lena used her own small scarred hands to brush the hair away from Heather’s face.

“Good morning,” she said in a voice that broke.  “It’s time to wake up and have your coffee.” She handed over the cup and smoothed her hand over Heather’s shoulder.  “It’s my turn to open the shop.”

The shop was attached to the house and had a yellow roof to match the house’s yellow front door.  There was a blue sign outside with the symbol of the female on it and careful lettering that said, “Arts and Crafts.”  It made Lena’s heart feel good to see it.  She used the biggest key on her ring to open the top and bottom locks and let herself inside.

Lena loved the shop.  It sold the things that Betty and Sam and Heather and other women in the neighborhood made.  She wished that she was talented enough to knit, to draw, or even to make jam, but she wasn’t.  Lena still went to school in the afternoons.  She was eighteen, but she had gotten behind and Heather said that it was important for her self-esteem to finish.

Lena was shy and awkward, but never with the customers.  Especially the children.  She didn’t mind when they roamed the store shouting, touching with their sticky fingers.  Sam, who didn’t like children, would often call her over to soothe and to distract their smallest customers.

Just before she left for school, a man with thick brown hair came into the shop with a little boy and a little girl.  Lena’s heart just about broke in her chest when she saw the way that the man bent down to talk to the little girl.  He took her to where they kept the hand-painted toys and dolls, and let her loose in the bin.  The girl—“Rosie” he called her—came up with a little red-headed doll with button eyes and a painted face.  She squeezed it to her small chest, then put it back in the bin.  They left the shop empty-handed.

Lena handed the shop keys over to Sam and slipped out of the back door.  Her car was parked out back. It had been a gift from her parents when she moved into the house and started up going to school again. Lena hardly ever went anywhere—mainly to school and back—but Heather said that it was good for her to have a certain amount of independence.  It made Lena feel proud that her parents and Heather trusted her with such a big responsibility, and she washed the car every weekend.  Lena never drove very fast or without her seatbelt and she was never low on gas.  She took her responsibilities seriously.

She took evening classes at the high school with the pregnant girls and the boys who worked as mechanics during the day.  She wanted to be friendly, but a lot of the other students wouldn’t talk to her because she was “one of those dykes.”  Lena was just glad that she had someplace to belong.  But when she looked at those fresh-faced girls with their protruding bellies, Lena’s heart yearned.  She knew that having a baby was a different kind of belonging.

“Feel my stomach,” one of the girls—Alana—demanded of everyone in the class.  “The baby’s kicking.”

Lena placed her hands around Alana’s stomach and felt the little pushes that were the baby’s feet.  “It’s so beautiful,” she murmured.  “You’re so beautiful,” she told those little feet before Alana pulled away.

Lena met her mother after school.  Her name was Helen, and that’s what the waitress called her when they went into the diner:  “Hey, Helen, hot enough for ya?”  Helen ordered a glass of water with lemon.   She squeezed the lemon into the glass and added a Sweet’n Low from its pink packet.   When she pushed the hair out of her eyes, Lena could see that they were deep and dark just like hers.

“Your brother had a track meeting  today,” Helen told Lena in her precise English.  “I wish you could have been there to cheer him on.”

“It was my turn at the store,” Lena murmured and ducked her head.

“What a good girl you are,” Helen said, meeting Lena’s eyes.  “So bright and responsible.”

Lena wondered what her mother would think if she knew how desperately Lena wanted to become a mother.  She felt sick inside knowing that Helen’s opinion of her would change.  She wouldn’t be good or bright or responsible anymore.  It was foolish to wish for something that she couldn’t have.

Heather told her not to worry about it.  “Relax,” she said as she blew air gently into Lena’s belly button.  Lena squirmed on the bed.  She tried to concentrate on her breathing:  in and out, in and out.  She always came too quickly the first time, and it was hard for her to have multiple orgasms.  Even in bed, Lena’s awkwardness betrayed her.  She rolled over onto her stomach and pressed her cheeks to the sheets to cool them.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Heather, her voice clouded with tears.

Heather rubbed her back: up and down, up and down.  “It’s okay, baby,” she said.

Heather drifted off to sleep.  Lena studied her wide back and the pattern of tattoos that swirled over her right shoulder.  Her eyes ached and she wanted a cigarette.  Heather didn’t like it when Lena smoked.  She said that Lena still had trouble respecting her life, her health, and her body.  Lena tried not to do it, but she needed something, so she got out of bed to make a cup of tea.

She was surprised to find the kitchen dark and empty.  Usually Betty and Sam stayed up far into the night playing cards and drinking black coffee at the kitchen table.  Sometimes they had friends over who stared and made Lena feel self-conscious.  She always had a hard time talking to people she didn’t know.

The stray cat that haunted the neighborhood was banging his head against the kitchen screen.  He meowed plaintively, and Lena wondered if he was hungry.  She was not allowed to feed the cat.  “He’ll just keep coming around.”  But he came around anyway, banging the screen and crying through the window.

“You scat!” Lena whispered.

The cat continued to complain loudly.  Lena was frightened that the noise he made would wake up the entire household.  All she wanted was a cup of tea, but her hands shook so badly on the kettle that she couldn’t get it filled.  The cat jumped to the window and stared at her through his bright yellow eyes.

Lena’s heart thumped hard against the wall of her chest.  She wrapped her arms around her body and rocked, praying that the cat would go away.  Its cries seemed to echo in the little kitchen.  Soon everyone would come downstairs, woken from their beds, full of pity and disappointment.

Lena ran to pantry and threw open the door.  She saw rows of beans and pasta, rice, cereal, racks of spices, crates of onions, garlic, peppers—nothing that would satisfy a cat.  The fridge held tofu packaged in water, soy and rice milk, a drawer full of apples, soy cheese, and a jug of lemonade.  Lena began to weep.  Pressing the back of hand against her mouth to silence the harsh sobs, she slid down the wall between the window and the door, and the cat’s cries filled the night.

The next morning, Lena was up at dawn scrubbing the kitchen floor.  “Every day is entirely new,” she said in her broken voice.   The phone jangled, startling her so that she dropped the brush and spilled the scrubbing powder.  “Fuck,” she said.  She answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this the arts and crafts store?”

“Well, yeah, technically,” Lena answered.  “But the store isn’t open yet.”  She paused.  “What can I do for you?”

“You have a doll: red hair, button eyes?  Can you put it aside for me?  I’ll come in for it later this afternoon.”

“Sure, sir.  Can I have your name?”

He gave it to her, and Lena hung up the phone.  She thought that the man had a really nice voice—soft, but not feminine—and she wondered if he was a father, and if the doll was for his little girl.  She thought that she knew who he was.  Not wanting to forget, she slipped out of the house and down to the store.  She opened the locks, and stepped into the dark.  Without switching on the lights, she found the red-haired doll with button eyes and placed it behind the register.  She let herself out again, locked the door, and stepped back into the kitchen to prepare Heather’s coffee.

Determined to do better, Lena set the cup and saucer on the bedside table and kissed Heather’s shoulder.  “I’ve brought your coffee,” she murmured.  Heather rolled over in the bed, the sheet slipping below her waist.  She gave Lena a critical study.  “What have you been doing?” her smoky voice asked.  “Your face is flushed.”

“Oh,” Lena said, biting her bottom lip.  “Just cleaning up in the kitchen.”

When Lena opened the store that day, she felt a delicious thrill of excitement.  She was certain that the same dark-haired man would return to pick up the little doll.  Rosie would get her prize after all.   Lena could not say why she wanted this to be so—why she willed the man to walk through the door—but she knew that she wanted to see him again.  She remembered the way he had bent his head so tenderly.  It made her heart ache.

Lena fussed.  She wondered if he would bring the children or if the doll was a gift.  She found a box that fit, and some tissue paper and wrapped the doll up prettily.  She put it in a shopping bag and put the bag on the counter so that it would be ready.  She felt almost frantic as she waited for the man to present himself, her heart knocking hard in her chest.

He came back.  Lena was a little disappointed that he did not bring the children.  But he spoke to her in his soft voice and Lena was so moved that she didn’t know what she replied.  She rang up the sale.  His hand touched hers as he handed over his credit card.  Lena brushed the hair out of her eyes, and met his eyes with hers.  “Thank you for coming.  Enjoy your purchase,” she said meaningfully.

“Thank you,” he said, and when she continued to stare, “Thank you very much.”  He left the store.

Lena did not know why she was so disappointed.  Did she really expect the man to fall in love with her and to take her away?  His children probably already had a mother.  She closed the shop and had a bath, sitting in the water until it turned cold.  She told Betty that she had a headache and wouldn’t be down for dinner, and did her homework by lamplight in her room.

Lena pretended to be asleep when Heather came to bed, turning her body so that Heather could only kiss her shoulder before sleep.  Heather did not see the tears sliding down Lena’s cheeks.  When she was certain that the house was quiet and that Betty and Sam had vacated the kitchen, Lena went downstairs.  She sat on the back stoop and lit a cigarette, watched it glow in the night.  She concentrated on her breathing: in, in, out, in, in, out.

The neighborhood stray came skulking.  Lena stroked its back and let it crawl into her lap.  “It’s okay, baby,” she murmured in a voice that broke.  “It’s okay.”

BR Belletryst
Offering
Response

Tropical Memories
By Urmilla Khanna
Inspiration piece

The ten-month-old infant had become very agile. He could crawl across the room and go rolling off the steps before you could say “No!”

It was a sunny summer morning in Jabalpur, India. Everyone was absorbed in the hustle and bustle of preparing the house for an evening party. Twenty top officials and their wives were coming to dinner. All the servants were scurrying back and forth, as Mother walked around in her supervisory role. Furniture was being polished, tablecloths starched and ironed and silverware sparkled. Amidst all this, I being nine at the time was asked to watch my baby brother and keep him out of danger.

I set him down on the large, open patio in the backside of our bungalow. The patio, just hosed off, was spotlessly clean, moisture rapidly evaporating in the morning sun. I considered it a safe place for little brother to crawl around and explore. I watched him dash off from place to place , stopping to scratch at or pick up with his tiny pincer grasp, the little ants that always lived in the crumbling grout of the slate patio. We often fed these dainty creatures with sugar and followed them as they carried off the granules to their distant dwellings.

I was looking at my brother as he sat in the middle of the patio, a small rattle in hand. From the back, his soft curls took my attention as I sat on the nearby steps. Dressed in a cotton romper he looked so cute. Lost in thought my gaze went a little farther. I saw a stately, well-poised cobra at the far end of the courtyard, slithering his way towards my brother. For many long moments I sat there, stupefied. The beauty of this creature mesmerized me. I felt paralyzed.

Cobras were a common occurrence in the underdeveloped areas of my childhood. We did not kill the Cobra, it being considered an incarnation of Siva himself. In fact, mother felt blessed that the distinctive Cobra had chosen our property to build his shrine. She often took a bowl of milk and placed it in the woods to satisfy his wrath. She said a silent prayer for our safety. If the bowl was empty the next morning, she felt her prayers had been heard and our family had been blessed. Full moon nights were particularly sacred. Cobras were sure to be out and about on such nights.

We had been indoctrinated about Nag, the cobra. Nag can slither on land, climb trees and even swim in water we were warned. It can kill an elephant with its venom. Though it cannot hear, it has the ability to register the slightest movement. It has a third eye on the back of its hood. So do not ever try to trick the cobra in any way!

We were taught to be aware of his rights; and we were to mind our own business. He lived in the woods near the little creek at the end of our compound.  I had never seen him. I was always curious about his existence. Now, here he was. I finally saw him.

Suddenly, I came out of my reverie and panicked. What should I do? Little brother is in danger! The mighty cobra is slithering his way across the patio. My instinct was to scream, “Get out of the way, you silly,” but I realized little brother would not understand my command; he was just a baby. He looked at the glistening, black, and beautifully patterned rope as a new toy coming his way. He began to crawl further to grab the toy.

Stay calm, I told myself, and asked my brain for quick guidance. In that split second, my brain responded. I had been taught that if ever a snake confronted me, I should calmly walk away in the direction opposite to its path. A snake cannot turn around.

I tip toed across the patio, quietly collected my brother and walked away. I brought him up the steps and on to the adjacent veranda. I gasped with relief. My brother and I were safe.

“Mother” I now screamed “the cobra….”

Before I could finish my sentence, mother came running to the scene, “Dear Lord, dear lord,” she said. She kissed us over and over, reciting her prayer as blessings for our safety. Then catching her breath, she said, “Where…where is the cobra?”

“There,” I pointed.

I stood shivering, holding my brother tightly in my arms. I saw the cobra slowly slithering on and coiling itself right where little brother was playing. As I stood frozen and speechless, my glance shifted to the far end of the bungalow.

I saw relief. I saw our Mongoose, the “Naola” coming down the side of the roof.  He waddled gracefully across the yard, climbed the steps leading to the patio and stood before the reptile. The predator of the cobra had arrived.

I was familiar with the existence of the Naola as well. He lived on the rooftop, for that is where I often saw him. He came down to find his food. Occasionally, he followed Mother into the dining room and ate a piece of toast, sitting beside her chair. I loved to watch this dainty little animal with its piercing dark eyes, sleek pointed face and striped furry body weaving in and out of our house. We had been trained to respect his rights also. If we left him alone he will never bother us, we were told. We had learned to admire him from a distance.

As the Naola stood face to face with the cobra, my fears began to melt. My little brother and I were both safe. Naola had taken the defensive. He will now be in charge.

I hailed my sister and brothers to come see the cobra and the mongoose face to face. Soon, there was an audience of ten or twelve. All the servants stopped in their heels and joined us sitting on the steps in pin drop silence.

The mongoose attacked the snake. The reptile was not to accept defeat readily. He hissed ferociously, rearing up and flattening his ribs into a hood, threatening the mongoose. The mongoose in his turn ferociously dodged the cobra, he swayed from side to side angrily, his forked tongue protruding back and forth.

Being at a safe distance, I was now amused , my eyes focusing on the majestic cobra raising his head higher and higher, exposing the beautiful yellowish white rings around his neck and flaring his hood bigger and bigger. He looked even more beautiful as the rays of the morning sun shone on his skin, giving an illusion of a freshly bathed glistening wet body.

We were watching the fight between the Cobra and the Mongoose.

Suddenly the mongoose jumped way up in the air and landed on the cobra’s upright neck. Blood streaked down the patio. The mongoose was going to win.

I do not know what happened next and how long the wrestling lasted. I became woozy and averted my gaze. Then, everyone was clapping and the action was over. The mongoose had killed the snake. The eight-foot long creature lay lifeless, guts ripped open. His last meal must have been a hefty lizard, still undigested.

Everyone rejoiced at the victory of the mongoose over the cobra. There was a big commotion.

Mother, however, had mixed emotions. She would no longer have to worry about our safety when we played by the creek.  On the other hand, she wondered if the protection showered by Siva on our household had been withdrawn by the death of the cobra.

“It was an act of God. It was an act of God,” she muttered repeatedly under her breath. “We had not killed the cobra.”

After things calmed down decisions had to be made about the disposal of. the dead reptile. Hindus do not touch dead animals. After some tete a tete between my parents, it was decided to call the chammar. He is the village shoemaker and by virtue of his profession, he is exempted from the rule.

The chammar arrived and skinned the reptile. The skin was sent away to Calcutta to have a handbag made for mother. The carcass made precious manure for an orange tree that had not borne fruit for many years.

In years to come, we did indeed enjoy fruit from the orange tree and mother was convinced it was the sacred manure!

The cobra is known as the deadliest of all poisonous snakes. It is often referred to as King Cobra. To this date, I have wondered how the mongoose had been able to avoid the poisonous bite of the snake.

BR Belletryst
Fallen
Inspiration piece

An incomplete story
By Urmilla Khanna
Response

The sheaths of fallen leaves rustled under her feet. The weather was balmy, and yet there was a chill in the air. There was a hint of a soft breeze, enough to stir the damp earth and bring out its freshness. It was neither day nor night, a transparent misty gray that promises another day.

She walked slowly, feeling her way through the woods. She knew there was a path somewhere beneath her feet. She had to test it with her shuffling gait. She stumbled on the bulging root of a tree. She looked up. The majestic maple was stark naked. The trunk, the limbs, the far reaching peripheral branches all stood in sharp relief against the silver moon in the dusty sky. She blushed.

It was the harvest moon.

Night was leaving. Day would soon manifest itself.

There was a solitary leaf afloat in a puddle, fluttering. Had it gone astray? She picked it up. She sat on the garden bench twirling the leaf and admiring the miracles of nature; the myriad colors in that single leaf.

They were the colors of her life, brilliant hues of orange and gold and crimson enmeshed amidst the fading pastels.

It will be just another mundane day for her. She will await another winter and then spring. She will wait…..