Falling far from the tree

Rob Walton

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“Oh, and, er, please collect the leaves.”

 

That heavy September they had gone travelling for a year and when they returned the back yard was full of leaves: all the leaves that had fallen in their street and the surrounding streets, on their neighbours’ drives and some from the park.

 

John was tired but he’d done as they asked.  

 

He had kept a diary of his collecting.  There were detailed records of the scarlets and the flames and the canaries from the autumn leaf fall.  He had tried to layer those together, hoping they would end up as brightly-coloured soil.  

 

He had tried to take photographs of slugs and snails, millipedes and centipedes and beautiful earthworms.  He had encouraged them to make homes for themselves in a way his parents had never encouraged him.