Transparent Leaves

The park right at the end of the street was a bustling place. Some took their pets for a walk, some took their children for playtime and the old couples would sit at either end of the benches and try to think of the exact point in their lives where they went wrong. 

Reelo however had very different reasons. 

He would try to listen to the old people thinking, but the laughing and cheerful noise of fulfillment from the children usually drowned the loud thoughts of the old couples. Besides, there was something more exciting for Reelo there – the strange tree with the thin leaves at the end of the park where nobody wandered. 

Every leaf bore a name on it.  A friend since childhood, Reelo knew that it showed its true self only to him. He never asked why though. Trying to get answers he might not survive hearing was something he had long let go of.

Everyday he would walk to the end of the park and try to read the names of the people that the leaves held on themselves. It was Reelo’s way of knowing people. Some names, like that of his own, had been there forever while some leaves turned transparent and were carried away by the wind.

Reelo remembered how the leaf that held his father’s name had turned glassy and flickered for some time before it fell off and was carried into oblivion by the unforgiving wind. His father choked on morsels of rice and passed away that afternoon. 

“Why do you not speak to others like you do to me?” – Reelo would ask. The tree would stand silently like always, only its name-bearing leaves moving faintly by the merciful brushing of the wind.

On the 17th of October 1983, Reelo went to the park like every other day – he sat on a bench, he listened and then walked to his oldest friend. This Monday was  different – even special in a way. 

Reelo read a few known names on the tree before he saw the leaf that held his name had no colours, one could see clearly through it. He stood there in silence letting the thought settle in. For the first time, the blissful laughing of children faded away – as if it were a different season, one of untouchable memories. He left a deep sigh and hugged the tree as tightly as he could. After a few minutes, he let go of the tree, turned around and walked back towards the gate of the park.

A thin ribbon of resin dripped and ran along the bark of the tree solidifying almost as quickly as it came out – Reelo’s name forming minutely in a strange pattern within the slender amber body of the resin.