A WALK IN AUTUMN LEAVES: A Quiet Dreaming Tale

A WALK IN AUTUMN LEAVES

© 2009 by David Wainland

Walking barefoot on autumn leaves was different, different than the sand at Orchard beach and very different than soft tar on a hot city roof.

I looked backward, over my shoulder and down. There was hardly a way to tell that I had passed. No foot prints, impressions or crushed grass. Only the earthy odor of disturbed fetid mulch and occasional overturned brown foliage gave proof to my wanderings.

Whispering breezes ran through the wood creating cascades of orange red and yellow. Fall began yet another layer, covering the hundreds that had gone before.

A flat, moss covered, greenish-grey rock rose out of the mound and I settled my body for a rest, taking time to pull twigs and small pockets of crackling maple from between my toes. My eyes cast about for a branch or stick that I might use in the hunt and fell upon a shadowed grove deeper into the trees than I had previously wandered. Looking into center I spied a bent spruce and at its base a myriad of fallen limbs.

 “Perfect,” I said aloud to the creatures of the forest and stood, leaving my red pail on the stone to mark my return. “I’ll bet I’m the first person ever to walk here.”

The drift of leaves made for easy walking and I followed it to the base of the greeen giant. Casting about, I soon came upon the perfect prod, about four feet in length, forked at the end, sturdy as crutch. I leaned my eleven year old body heavily into it, using all of my one hundred-ten pounds to determine its strength. It gave slightly in the middle then snapped back. The branch was green and what I needed to dig with.

“You’ll do.”

The stick clutched in my fist, I picked my way back to the high spot.

“Now where do I begin?”

I hefted the stick and twirled the length as a soldier on parade might do with his rifle. Then, grasping the forked ends in my hands I spun on the rock and turned almost a full three hundred and sixty degrees. The gnarled surface trembled in my fingers, vibrated up to my elbow and the tip of the staff dropped heavily to the ground.

Once, in school, I read of a method for finding water. They used a similar device and I remembered they called it a, “Divining rod.” 

Alone in the wood I suddenly found the magic I always knew lay hidden  inside of me. Finally the truth, I was special.

Jumping off the slab I moved swiftly to the spot, the terminus of my special power and I turned the rod, grasped the middle in both hands and used the serpents’ tongue to dig and lift.

The first load proved the accuracy, for under the matted leaves lay a swirling mass of slithering night-crawlers, beige collared worms up to a foot in length. Larger than anything I had found during my summer months in the Catskills.

            Greedily I gathered the wriggling mud covered denizens of the leafy tundra. Of course they tried to escape, slipping between my fingers and hanging their damp bodies over the edge of my palms, but I was determined and sure of myself.

            Plop, they dropped into my pail, clustering in a tight mass and there they remained while I probed into yet another nest and added them to my treasure trove. 

            David, your friends should see this, they will never believe how many and how big.

I was the picture of effervescence. Unfortunately they were gone, the summer colonies abandoned and we alone remained here in September waiting for my father to come and return us to the Bronx. 

            Still, I had the weekend and two more days of fishing armed with the best bait of the year. I had the lake to myself and in my mind I pictured an endless string of fish.

“One more shovelful should do it.” I thrust the business end of the shaft into the soggy ground and turned. The leaves lifted, revealing dozens of worms blanketing the sod, twisting and turning around something long and white turned amber.

A bone, surely the remains of an animal, I scampered back to my stone ignoring the night crawlers. From where I stood it looked instead like the remains of an arm torn from a science class skeleton. My heart thumped, and I sat down hard.

The wind brought a rain shower tumbling through the branches. Heavy droplets splashed about me.

By now my feet were filthy and I took the moment to wipe the centuries of muck from my ankles with fresh leaf fallings. In the process my hand brushed a sharp edge of stone, slicing my finger. I looked down to see blood splattering onto the hard, but broken surface. Small rivulets of rain and red were flowing through narrow grooves. My eyes fixated on the spread, the channels almost looked like words. Brushing the top I moved closer to the face and a crude lettering jumped out.

“Born 1786 died 1847.”

That was all I saw and all I needed. My feet worked faster than my brain. Sliding off the stone I raced through the wood, my breath coming in raspy sobs, my mouth dry, and my head pounding away at terrible thoughts.

I never told anybody, never returned to that awful spot where I once believed I had found my power and was the first to tread.

To this day I wonder if anybody has ever come across the stone and then pondered the reason for an old red pail filled with mummified worms resting upon an ancient grave marker.