This is how the story begins—
with a single leaf
Falling
To find that leaf would be to pluck a needle from a haystack, as any number of leaves fall on any given day, for any number of reasons.
But this one.
It was a first, a leader, a demarcation in time, and despite its status, its importance, it would be lost on the forest floor, be absorbed back into the soil, pushed down into mulch with the accumulating years, and one day return not as a leader, but as a follower.
That would be another story altogether.
That one leaf falling with purpose prompted others to follow suit, until at last, the mass exodus became noticeable to the other beings who made their homes in the vicinity.
Until finally, the sun could no longer soften the earth, the air.
This is how the Journey begins.
Not with a single step, but with the slow, inescapable passage of time.
The text for the rest of this original short story can be read on Vocal.