A light breeze gathers the first of the fallen leaves, shuffling them like cards in a blackjack dealer’s hands. It circles our cul-de-sac, distributing the leaves one by one, two by two into the yards of we who live here. Your leaves in my yard. My leaves in yours. Before long, nobody knows whose leaves are whose. Eventually, against the tug of autumnal inertia, the men (always the men, the gender most inclined to war) emerge with their weapons. They stand in the middle of their lawns, looking at the work ahead. Then, with a sigh, they reach down and grasp the cord and pull. Their leaf blowers roar to life. Offspring of trees quake in their path. Birds flee in fright. Kids struggle to hear their playmates. Dogs begin to howl their protest. One din merges into another. Before long, the neighborhood is unlivable. Leaves lift from lawns, ahead of the cursed exhaust, tumble through the air, catch a ride on a passing puff of fall air, and settle into a neighbor’s yard. If they had a thought or agency of their own, they could just rise up and leave. Alas, they live and die and fly at the mercy and whims of militant mortals. Silence strolls from yard to yard, moving its lips, screaming at the top of its lungs to be heard.

men with magic wands
transforming tranquility
into clouds of leaves

Stuart Watson

wrote for newspapers in Anchorage, Seattle and Portland. His writing appears in numerous publications, including 433, Barzakh, Bending Genres, Bloom, Fewer than 500, Five South, Flash Boulevard, Grey Sparrow Journal, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Montana Mouthful, Mystery Tribune, Pulp Modern Flash, Reckon Review, Revolution John, Sledgehammer Lit, The Writing Disorder, Two Hawks Quarterly and Yolk. He lives in Oregon, with his wife and their amazing dog.

Author’s website: https://chiselchips.com/