I step on a leaf as I get out of the shower. Its ruined carcass crunches, bits of it sticking to the bottom of my damp foot, the spine still resting amongst the fibers of my bathmat. I stop. How did a leaf make it all the way to my little no-window bathroom?
I shake my head, my hair shooting gentle drops of water across the mirrors. With a swipe of my foot across the mat, the remains of the leaf strip free from my foot, caught instead amongst grabbing polyester fibers.
I follow my routine—towel twisted through my hair, another up and down the length of my body, then into pajamas and onto the bed, where I pick up my computer and attempt a grasp at that elusive fable: productivity.
I stare at the flash of that offensive little black line blinking in and out of existence. Why. Aren’t. You. Writing. The white on the page seems to grow, filling an impossible expanse. The black line blinks. Work. Work. Work. Think. Think. Think.
How did that leaf end up in my bathroom? That inconsequential little room rested at the back of the house, with a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen, and a screened porch in the way of the looming oaks outside. So how did that single brittle leaf make its way from the tree outside to the edge of my shower, unbroken until my terrorizing toes wrecked its impossibly preserved status?
The little black line blinked. I imagined my leaf. It would have come from the oak on the left, the laurel. It would have fallen in a gentle breeze, it was too pristine to have died of its own means, and separate from all others, thus unlikely to have lost its hold by means of a harsh wind, the sort that blew whole branches loose.
Once free of the branch that had given it life, it would have spun in the air as it fell, twisting out a liberating dance before settling on the edge of the warped decking framing the porch.
The black line blinked. I recalled a stronger wind that came through just before the torrential rains, just a few days prior. That wind was too strong to bring gentle ends to those leaves which had spent several days dwindling in the unusually dry air. But my little leaf was new, and flexible enough to survive the unforgiving gusts. It would tumble past its crumbling brothers, up into the air, trying to fly like that first fall, and into the open screen door.
It must have just missed the rim of the pool, and avoided the maze of lounge chairs.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
To make it into the house, a particularly strong gust must have helped it over the edge of the doorframe, and through the open french doors. But how had it then traveled all the way across the house? No wind to help it.
Blink. Blink.
Maybe it got caught in the bit of white fuzz that always peaked between the pads of the dog’s feet, wedging its way deep enough in the curls to be protected from the impact of feet on wood.
Blink.
Or maybe when the doors were closed against the creeping cold of the night, the force was enough to nudge the leaf to the hall, where the opening and closing of bedroom and closet doors sent it spiraling into the bathroom, where it finally came to rest on my mat, meeting its final end under my unforgiving foot.
Satisfied that my chronicles rightly depicted the harrowing journey of the lone leaf, the blinking ceases, replaced by the tapping of keys. My easily distracted mind devoid of the inspiration to change worlds, I settle for the tale of my wayward leaf.
The black line begins to blink again. Not a good ending. Not a good ending. It was far too tragic, the battered remains of my hero laying forgotten. Broken. Not the sort of ending such an odyssey should be afforded.
Blink. Blink. Blink. I remember that with that infuriating cursor, I can do what no one else can: I can tell the future. So I type out the final resting place of my leaf, to be fulfilled several hours later—the poor remnants carefully picked from the mat and carried outside, where the dusting of hands sets them free in the wind that first brought my leaf to me.
