Dead Leaves

At first glance there is nothing, scattered leaves; occasional glimpses of dirt. You look away, then glance back again to find that still, there is nothing, nothing in that ugly spot of ground covered with dead leaves, and not pretty dead leaves either; no red or yellow to flatter the eye, just ugly, brown, dry leaves. You stare at the patch of dead ground that you had mistakenly wandered onto, the ugly metal chain link fence running through the leaves the only variation.1

Just past the twisted links of this fence and up a slight bank lies the elementary school, an occasional paper cup, brown paper bag, and crumpled and ripped paper with pale blue lines and faded pencil are visible. Surly there was never a more repulsive, dull, depressing, and yet insignificant plot of ground anywhere. You glare, reveling at this ugly stretch of land, the brown leaves curled and rotting on the gray of the dirt, you can’t bear to look at it, and have to look away. A small alteration of the earth catches your eye though, a tiny stone, small enough perhaps to be called a pebble; perfectly round except for a tiny dimple in its surface that is caked with dried mud. Its dark gray contrasts with the dead brown of the leaves strangely, and a leaf that is a bit more orange than the others rests against this pebble, casting a ragged, dark shadow against its curve. 2

You look away from the stone toward the ground; tiny shapes seem to be moving under the layer of dead leaves, an empty breeze falls through the clearing making the leaves rustle and shift, bringing the ground to life for a moment. A distant call from a child and a shout of laughter briefly reach you ears. You kneel down, your pant leg crunching and flattening a patch of the leaves, and look closer. First you notice the twigs interspersed with the leaves, their pale tan color, the way they are so straight and perfect compared with disjointed and crumpled leaves, then you notice the way the leaves are colored, the way the center of each folded, wrinkled, and dead leaf is a dark reddish brown, then the way the pigment fades as it moves toward the crinkled edges until it is an ashen brown color, and the pale whitish tan veins that run in a lattice work throughout thin material. The dark brown color of rot is spotted randomly and tiny holes open in the dead leaves here and there. 3

You squint, leaning even closer, and see tiny ants and their minuscule feet scrambling over the dirt, which first seems to be a continuous plain gray color, until you distinguish that it is actually millions of tiny, crushed crystals whose color ranges from cloudy gray to pure white and transparent, the occasional dark red sand ruby stands out clearly, accenting the gray and white with a dash of color. The black of leaves long rotted and crushed to soil is spread evenly through the tiny crystal sand. The tiny ants, no bigger than the tip of a ballpoint pin are a dark golden brown, delicate honey colored bands circle their abdomens and their tiny pincers are dark red, their flat eyes are black. Tiny, perfect antennae, a pair on each ant wavers and bobs now and then intermingling with the antenna of another ant, their movement seeming so random, but so obviously not. A beetle, only the size of your pinkie finger, but huge compared to the ants blunders through and over the leaves, its hard black shell round and faultless, minute ruts run the length of it. Its antennae seem to be made of thousands of tiny black beads run together, each one wavers back and forth, touching every leaf the beetle passes, prodding and searching like a blind man with a cane, and pausing now and again and adjusting its course, changing direction until it reaches the round pebble and climbs to the top and halts. Its antennae and head sway and rock above the pebble, its mouth appendages quivering, looking almost as if it was dancing. After a moment it freezes then climbs off the stone and slips into the foliage. 4

You take a deep breath and stand, moving carefully thinking of the tiny specks of life under you shoes, just waiting to be crushed. You look around at the ugly plot of land, the disgusting chain link fence running through it, the delicate silk of a spider’s web hanging on the bottom couple of links, its perfect and pure threads running from metal twist to twist. Dirt, dead bugs, and flies twined and tangled in it, no spider in sight. Your gaze wanders back and forth across the leaf strew ground, so simple, so insignificant and dull, but infinitely layered, and the closer you look the more perfect, the more organized and directional it seems. It was beautiful, wasn’t it? It was perfected complexity, and only those who had the time to look, to squint and kneel in these dead leaves forgotten behind this elementary school would ever see it.