Sunday 8 May 2011

The Leaving

Once upon a time there was a boy whose skin it was said had a greenish hue. His friends used to tease him that he looked like a tree. One day their English teacher announced a story competition. A list of titles was given to choose from. One of the titles was "The Leaving". "You should write about how you turned into a tree!" one of his friend's joked to him. "Hey, cool idea," he replied laughing, "I think I will". And he did! A few days after all the boys had handed in their stories, he saw his English teacher in the school corridor. "I really liked your story," she told him. "Are you joking with me," he replied. "No, seriously," she reassured him, "it was excellent." Usually English homeworks always took him a long time, but he'd written this one really quickly. He was baffled when he later heard he'd won the prize, and also very pleased. They never teased him for looking like a tree after that.


The Leaving
(Feb. 1996)

The curtains billowed in the wind, the curtain rings rubbing against the rails with a discordant screeching sound. I shut the open window. The noise died down to a murmur. The crisp brown leaves rustled along the hard stone cobbles. It was not late, but it was already dark outside. The trees were not yet bare of leaves, their outlines visible against the clear and purple sky overlooking everything. In the daytime, hundreds had picnics under the wonderful display of yellow-brown leaves, short-lived, sparks of brilliance and wonder. Then nothing would be left behind.


The wind grew stronger now, the windows shaking in their wooden panes. I decided to leave the warmth of the house and take a short walk outside wrapped up in my anorak to feel the cool wind upon my face, the sweet night air. I moved almost effortlessly, the wind continually driving me forward on a blanket of air. The few lights that were still on were now disappearing into darkness. Then all the houses were black, bowing down in obedience to the night. The noise of my shoes upon the ground seemed to carry along the whole length of the tree-lined avenue, like a tunnel, the trees bending over my head on either side. The wind echoed and the leaves scraped against the hard surface, making a crunching noise as they were trodden on.

"Time to go back before the wind gets too strong," I thought to myself. I turned my back to come face to face with the merciless force of the rising wind. I put on my hood, but it was little use. I turned round and began to walk backwards. I kept on looking round, but despite this, the slight changes in direction of the wind left me knocking into flower pots, walking into parked cars and on one occasion stumbling on an empty Coke can in someone's front garden.

Suddenly I felt an abrupt pain from the back of my head. I seemed to be encircled, surrounded. I could no longer move, trapped in my position. I tried to free my arms, but all I heard was the crunching of leaves and the noise of the wind, tearing at my face. I was surrounded by leaves. They grew higher and higher. I tried to lift myself out, but to no avail. I did not have my portable telephone so I could not call for help. I was drowning in a flood of leaves. They poured all over me like waves in the sea over a drowning man. I could not swim in leaves and my body was numb from cold. I breathed heavily and after one final attempt managed to climb on to the leaves. I started to crawl over them, a wave of relief now passing over my body. The trees seemed closer to me now, still bending, but this time lower, swaying downwards, staring thoughtlessly, staring mindlessly, as if about to grab me. All I could see in the sky was a mass of black, a thunderstorm of leaves, no longer beautiful, but menacing. They were falling around me, swallowing me up. "Where am I going?" I thought to myself.

Houses trapped me on either side. My only path was forward. Then suddenly the leaves seemed to give way, leaving no escape route. There was a loud crunch as I fell through the leaves and more leaves fell on top. I was buried. I held my breath for what seemed an age, struggling furiously. Suddenly, it was light. I saw myself through the leaves lying still, motionless. The image became smaller and smaller and then completely disappeared into a vivid white.

I had left the Earth far behind and all my neighbours, a sudden departure, a vivid farewell and then there is a blankness in my memory. I was nowhere and yet I remember once drinking from a well. I was in a queue waiting to get my share of water. My two next door neighbours were behind me. They must have died in that same thunderstorm of leaves.

The picture grew larger, I saw a tree and I entered that tree, became innate with it. My arms were turning into branches, my fingers into leaves. I turned my head to see my old neighbours on that same avenue, their actions identical to mine. Then my head sprouted leaves and I became a tree. We were the homes of the new birds and since we died in autumn when the leaves died, we became creators of leaves ourselves and servants of the spring. This was the leaving of my former self and the leaving of my body.

21 comments:

  1. Poignantly beautiful.
    Thank you for sharing.

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  2. Magnificient piece you have composed.

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  3. Beautiful and very well written! Glad you found it. And you said it was not a spiritual piece when written! I beg to differ, I think you were channeling your higher self here for sure, thats where the speed of writing usually comes from. Was reminded of my first deep spiritual experience actually, in Nov 1999, when I wrote "I melted into the stone that was holding me up, was swallowed into the wet muddy grass, surged from the roots of the trees to touch the wind and then flew as the wind, flew as the birds."
    Blessings to you always and much Metta!

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  4. (((( ♥ ))))

    Beautifully in all ways !!!

    Thank you

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  5. Thanks Tamara and everyone for reading!!!

    Rose, this is from long long ago. I was almost a different person.

    But I just realized it was probably expressing something deep within my subconscious as Hille says. I'm trying to work it out... There's an apprehension and feeling of helplessness before the natural forces of life and death. Ten years later, I subconsciously wrote something remarkably similar, which I'm thinking now expressed apprehension and helplessness before the natural forces of sexuality. Unfortunately, the latter was not so neatly resolved.

    Hille, I sense an experience of unity and freedom in what you wrote... I was just re-reading my story, and I agree that it expresses something deeper, perhaps a coming-to-terms with the fear and helplessness of struggling against the forces of nature...in particular life and death. There is a dream-like quality, so I looked up the dream symbolism of "leaves". It was certainly a very productive time of my life, so I agree with this...

    To see leaves in your dream, signify new found happiness and improvements in various aspects of your life. It is symbolic of fertility, growth and openness. Alternatively, leaves represent a passage of time. Depending on the color and type of leaf, the dream could be highlighting a certain period of time. The leaves may also be a metaphor to "leave" you alone. To see brown or withered leaves in your dream, signifies fallen hopes, despair, sadness and loss.

    Lin, thank you! And thanks again to Hille for prompting me to go back to this.

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  6. You have a beautiful talent. Your vivid imagination transported us to a time and place we could see, feel and touch. Keep the ink flowing....

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  7. Fascinating piece, psychologically..... if the "green" boy represented a sense of innocence/naivety, and the drowning in leaves and uniting with the tree at the end - clearly about death and rebirth within the natural order, could it be that the natural order of things - the way Reality works - has been fearful to you although you long to fully experience it? And perhaps you fear that it cannot be cognitively understood or you will not be able to experience it?

    I'll have to think about this some more.... very interesting, Okei!

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  8. What an amazing story. Thanks, dude!

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  9. Oh heck. Symbolism. I was hoping that if a tornado blew me to kingdom come, I'd have a chance of being a tree.

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  10. Thank you! Maybe the ink will flow if I drop the pen, lol. In a strange reversal, I'm more likely to use a pen these days, whereas I used to type straight onto the computer then.

    And Happy Mother's Day to you too...

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  11. I thought the other way round that I was perhaps fearful of it, and some kind of processing of that fear. It was a time of great acceleration in my life when I was learning a lot of things, and things started really falling into place as to what I wanted to do when I grew up etc.

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  12. Thanks Jach for reading!! Glad you enjoyed. :)

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  13. For sure... :) but also the tornado was needed to get me there, lol.

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  14. I have a friend Ben, who writes of leaves. Your writing made me think of him. I think he'd of enjoyed their campaign.

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  15. Talk of leaves makes me think of chapter 1 of Cristina Peri Rossi's "Panic Signs" which anticipated the creeping authoritarianism that took over in Uruguay.

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  16. My goodness. That seems a vast leap.

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  17. If you read it on google books, all will become clear. Lol.

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  18. Sorry. My dancecard is filled up.

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  19. No problem. I'm reading Plato today!! Just for fun obviously. :)

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  20. Someone just brought my attention to this... "The Garden" by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678).
    http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/garden.htm

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