Fading beneath the crimson hue of a dying sun, her petals floated in downward spirals, one by one, until few were left. Poised, solitary, rooted in the soil where she’d been born, she had no power to save these petals, and could only watch as the sky became clearer with each cycle of a reincarnated sun. The trees were losing their autumn petals, too; but they would have the strength to survive what was to come. She knew that she, however, would not.
Some days she would catch the warmth of a child’s laughter, playing in the nearby remaining grass. She even felt that on occasion, she may be special to this child. The child had watched her grow up, after all.
If only she could uproot and be someone, maybe she could feel genuinely special; maybe she could keep her petals and no longer fear the nipping revenants in the air, that whispered of what was to come for her.
Glistening drops weighed on her lingering petals each morning, collected in the sorrowful night. She missed the gentle kisses of those black and yellow tenders, who visited when it was warmer. She suddenly felt so irrelevant, so out of place and surrounded by the stark contrast of dead leaves let go by those overhead, and living trees that would never die, it seemed. But where did she fit in she wondered, as she watched, powerlessly, the world begin to dim.
She had all but given up; slumped, head bowed but without a familiar gospel to call her own, she waited for what was next. And then it happened.
Her foundation began to stir, she became looser in her grounding, and a slicing sensation overcame her suddenly; some of her roots were being severed! But not all… what was happening?
She was being lifted from the only ground she’d ever called home, a rapture she’d never expected; a child’s face she had underestimated.
As quickly as she was scooped up, her roots were transplanted into a new terracotta-glazed home filled with dark rich soil; and for the first time in her life, she was taken in. She was brought home for the winter, and she would survive.
