The tree and the leaf

The leaf fly
because the tree
didn't ask her to stay

Once upon a time there was a leaf, the most beautiful leaf ever, and there was nothing like it and will never be another leaf like it. The leaf and the tree see each other grew up, and they dwell on the same garden. The leaf was surrounded by other plants that admired her beauty; the tree was but a young sprout and still full of life. He too, admired this Gardener's creature and adored her.

But the leaf, ignoring many other plants that long for her companionship, saw the tree constantly looking at her. While the tree never once approached or talk to her, he hadn't notice that the wordless feeling he harbored for her didn't go unnoticed. The leaf saw deep in his eyes something that melts her stem.

When it was time for them to reach the next stage of their lives, the future was uncertain. They had to either move to other pots, or stay on the same pot. The tree thought the leaf was going to be moved to another pot, and the leaf thought the tree was going to be moved to another pot. The tree prayed that they would remain in one pot, while the leaf asked the bird to tell the tree her feelings.

"There's nothing more I want on earth other than this," the tree thought upon receiving the message from the bird, but then the shadow of doubt began to crept on his core, planting its seeds, "I still have many years in front of me. Many plants that move out of the pot to the earth lose their leaves. When I move out of the pot, I have to go to another garden, far away from the garden where I was born."

"It would be good many years I have to spent in a foreign garden, before I can come back to the garden where she lives." If the tree asked the leaf to stay in his branch, when it was time for them to come out of the pots and being planted on the earth, they would have to separate, and the leaf would have to live on the earth by herself during those crucial years, while the tree lived in a faraway garden.

The tree gave a message back to the bird, but kept the bird in a cage in one of his branches, because doubt had began its work in his core. But the Gardener answered the tree's prayer, and he kept the leaf on the same pot with him for a couple more years. That was the happiest moment in the tree's long and sad life. In those days, life was blissful and many beautiful memories made. Still, the tree was too shy to be around the leaf, and they rarely talk more than couple awkward moments. And the leaf never got an answer back, because the bird didn't came back. The tree only communicated his feelings to the leaf by the butterflies, twice a year, even though he knew butterflies could not carry messages as good as birds. Still the tree thought it was sufficient until the final moment.

So it was time when they move to the final pot before they being planted to the earth. That pot was a melting pot full of the Gardener's creatures, and the leaf and the tree met many wonderful -- and not so wonderful -- creatures. Among the creatures was the wind; and of this creature, not so much could be told of it other than he moves away freely, carrying anything that he could and dropping them anywhere he liked. And the little wind grew into a tempest, but now he only have one thing in mind, to get the leaf.

The leaf, seeing the tree's passiveness, were left wondering about the tree's feeling toward her, and for four years she waited the tree to ask her to stay, but the tree stalled and was taking things slowly, unhurried and unworried. Alas, when the storm came, everything was too late. Tempest came to the leaf with his hand reaching for her, the leaf, eyes looking back to the tree who are still oblivious, starting to raise her hand toward the tempest, and before the tree realized, the tempest had flown the leaf with him, and since then both of them had been inseparated. The moment the tree realized what happened, the illusion that blanketed his core was gone, because unknowingly, he has attached his core to the leaf, and when she flew, she took the tree core with her. From that time, merriment and happiness depart from the tree.

The tree spent the next years in a faraway garden, as it has been written in the Book of the Gardener, while the tempest carry the leaf to a garden near their old garden. Today, ten years has passed on, the tree has come back to the old garden, full of vigor, but he cannot regrow what was lost, and has accepted no other leaves ever; the tempest and the leaf finally decided to settle down. But that is only the beginning of the story.