The Little Leaf

One of the "Little" stories

The Little Leaf

 

Once upon a time… Oh, you think this is going to be another slimy green frog and Princess in a white dress stories that ends up with “…and they lived happily ever after,” don’t you?  The truth is, kids, Princesses don’t kiss frogs.  But contrary to popular belief back then, in the words of Kermit the Frog©, nowadays it is getting easier being green.

 

Anyhow, back to the story… Once upon a time, there was a mighty Oak tree that grew on a riverbank in Virginia.  The sun would rise across the river and the leaves of this beautiful oak would turn their faces towards it to catch every possible ray.  Just like leaves are supposed to do, they would all do that Photosynthesis stuff, turning the sun’s energy into food for the tree all day long.

 

But, there was this one little leaf who lived on branch number 366.891 West of this Oak tree.  Oh, you didn’t know that the trees keep track of the address of all their branches?  Let’s just leave it at this… There are lots of things we don’t know about this world we all live in.  This little leaf had a minor problem however.  He was not green!

 

“It was a fluke of nature.”  One of the big lady leaves who lived on 366 whispered to another about her same size as she adjusted her stem slowly to face the sun.

 

“He’s some kind of freak.”  Three of the mid-sized younger leaves would taunt the little leaf every day as the sun made its slow journey across the sky.

 

Try as he could, he couldn’t produce even the slightest amount of energy from all the sunlight that fell on him.  Nothing ever flowed through his stem.  No sap to nourish the tree could ever say that it came from the little leaf.

 

“The Sun still falls on me just like the other leaves.”  The little leaf would say to himself when he wasn’t being taunted or scorned by the other leaves.  “I wonder what my purpose is?”  He would think each night as the sun set slowly in the west.   Living at 366 West, he had a better view of the sun setting than he did of its rising.  When they weren’t taunting him, the little leaf would hear the bigger leaves say things to each other like “I’m not a morning person.”

 

Then, one day an original thought came to the little leaf.  “Everyone is the same…”  Was the thought that came to him.  Actually, that was not very original because the general thinking among the leaves already was that everyone was the same… they all spend their lives turning sunlight into food.  “…but everyone is different too!”  That was the rest of the thought… the part of the thought that was original.

 

 “There are big leaves like the two ladies who gossiped all day long to each other.  There are plenty of leaves like the three who bully and taunt me every day.”  The little leaf continued thinking.  “In fact, they taunt all the others who are smaller than them, or bigger too for that matter.  They even taunt that poor leaf over there at 366.870 who had part of himself eaten by that ugly worm who crawled up here back in July and wrapped himself in that silk string that came out of his butt.

 

Then the leaf started to wonder.  “I wonder how many of us there are on this tree?”  Is exactly what he was wondering to himself when right at that moment he clearly heard a voice say…

 

“The average Oak tree has about 200,000 leaves, children.”

 

“Wow,” the little leaf said to himself.  That’s amazing.  I wondered how many leaves were on this tree and I heard the answer.  Then he remembered seeing all the leaves on the ground that had fallen from the tree in previous seasons.

 

“In its lifetime that can last up to 60 years, this tree will produce more than ten million leaves, about 3600 pounds.”  The leaf heard the same voice say.

 

“That’s more information than I even wondered about.”  The little leaf thought as he listened to the voice clearly providing more and more information about his tree.  “Did you hear that?”  He cautiously said to two larger leaves who lived close by on his branch.  The two paid no attention to the little leaf speaking and went on about their business changing the sunlight into food and adjusting their stems for the best view of the Sun.

 

“Listen up children.”  The voice went on.  “Every fall, the tree will cut off the water supply to the leaves and they will fall off the tree and float to the ground.  Eventually the leaves will turn back into soil and help new life come from the ground.”  The voice went on.  “A layer of abscission cells form and then when those cells die, they will cause the leaves to fall off the tree.”   The little leaf heard the voice say to the group of little people that were there with the nice looking female person who was the one doing the talking.

 

“So,” the little leaf thought sort of out loud to himself.  “There is more to life than just being on this tree, someday we will go on an important journey.”  Now, wouldn’t you know it, just as the little leaf was thinking that very thought, a bit of a chilling wind raced across the river and rustled through the tree.

 

“It’s the coming of fall.”  One of the women said to the other.  “Whatever are we going to do?  We’re all going to die!”

 

“What was that?”  One of the three bullies said to the other two who had been busy taunting another leaf that was not exactly like them over on 367.

 

“What’s going on?”  The third bully said, not having felt the cool breeze as he was busy taunting the leaf on the next branch.

 

Right at that moment, a much bigger and colder wind raced across the river.  The branches around 366 and all the others swayed as the mighty wind rushed through the tree.  The abscission cells that the little leaf remembered hearing about felt the cold and began their job of disconnecting the leaves from the tree.

 

“Come on children, the winds picking up and we had better get back to school.”  The little leaf heard the nice woman say to the little people as she buttoned up some of their coats.

 

“We’re going to die.”

“Our lives are over.”… The two women leaves said to each other.

 

“What’s happening to us?” 

“What was that?”

“Who did that?”…  The bullies spoke in fear, no longer taunting anyone.

 

“Can’t you all see that our lives are just beginning?”  The little leaf shouted out loud, just as another blast of wind reached the mighty Oak.

Reviews

[Ruth]

I LOVE this!
Great story :) The promise of life at the end of this piece is wonderfully done! For the end of one chapter brings another:) That process is always a hrash one!
xx

[Galldora King]

This was great and quite original.

I liked the way the story flowed.All nice and smooth.

Thanks for a great read.

[Melissa Kesead]

Very informative little story. I'm not sure about the ending, though; the story seems like it needs to go on a little further, to show the circle of life after they fall and nourish the ground or something. That's just my opinion talking, though.