Mediocrity

There falls the Last Leaf

It was a minute before midnight. She was wiping the last set of tears off her cheeks when you remembered to check on her. It was the first time after a long while. The first time after you bid her goodbye. You finally wanted to to talk to her. And she wished you hadn't. Because when you left, her world became a world that knows only the season of fall.

There was still comfort there. It was still beautiful and colorful as all the trees redressed and unveiled the lovely hues in the foliage. But fall is not fall until leaves start falling. So looking around, she found this beautiful world melancholic. Tragic. Dying. And with every fall of a single leaf, one thing after another died. She almost died. But you see, there was one tree with one single leaf left. All the other leaves in that tree turned a shade of brown and fell, but that leaf, didn't change. Not totally, at least. The shade of death had eaten more than half of it. But it kept on hanging, like it was clinging to life, adamant to survive the season. And that leaf was her.

You left her, and she almost gave up. She lmost wanted to just freely fall down to the ground and accept her death. Thinking that maybe, at last, everything had ended and she need not despair nor feel pain anymore. But she kept on telling herself, just hang in there, hang in there a little while longer, maybe then, she'll live to see a start of another season. And start anew.

So like an almost dead leaf with a thin petiole for support attaching itself to the branch of the tree, she didn't give up. She didn't want to. Because she knew how it felt to be okay. She knew that one day, she'll be okay again. She'll wait just for a little while longer and trust time with her healing.

It's quite funny though. When you left, she was almost dead, and when she felt almost healed, you came back and say you still have so much love for her. And so she remembered how it was like to be loved by you. To love you. She also remembered how it was painful to be hurt by you, but couldn't deny how much she still loved you. 

She became ready to embrace another season. To be reborn. But that minute before midnight, when she was wiping the last set of tears off her cheeks, she welcomed you back in her life.

But I guess you really become stupid when you love too much. Stupid enough to forget that after fall, what comes next is not summer, not spring. Not something to celebrate and make you want to go out and enjoy. It's winter. Cold, dark, bathed in pure white but gloomy all day, all night. It's an unbearable season. One she might not survive. And she  should've known. Should've known better. She almost died. She was almost healed. Until she let you love her again. Until she let you leave her again. Until she let you hurt her again.

She should've known that that minute before midnight when when was wiping the last set of tears off her cheek, it wasn't the last set she'll be wiping off. It was just the signal for another set to fall. And when at last when the real last set of tears fell, sh didn't need to wipe them off anymore. With them and that leaf that kept on hanging, she had fallen.

It was a fall that she didn't survive. That she didn't want to survive.