Leaf

A "random word" text from my Internet-based writing group. In this case, the prompt was "leaf". Random-word texts are supposed to be written with minimal reflection and editing. "What does this word suggest to you?" They can become the seeds for later stories. 



I grip the leaf with all my limbs, gnaw through the stem, and fall. Wind catches me at once, spins me at random, tosses me above the trees and whirls me out over the river. The updraft fails, and I drift downward, rocking in my cradle of air. We skim above the surface of the water, then settle and touch. The current grips the leaf, and once again I whirl, careening past rocks where the water folds and purls in smooth transparent ridges. Then onward, into the center of a vast slow eddy. The water hangs brown and deep beneath us, sliding over speckled stones the color of sparrows’ eggs.

A carp surfaces and nudges the leaf, then turns and sinks, his vast reticulate side merging with the palmate fluke of his tail. The leaf is sinking. Already its upper concave surface is pooled with water where minute, transparent life-motes dance, twinkling with cilia.

I consider joining them. But such a life is not within my power. I am a creature of the wind, the clouds, and the tossing trees. I balance on the edges of the submerging leaf and spin out my gossamer wings. The carp returns, a massive head and eye. My wings spread wide, grasping air. The great mouth opens on the arched cave of tongue and gills. I catch the wind before the pale lips close around the leaf, and pull it under.