by G E Barr

Created on: November 11, 2008

BLUSTERY OCCASION

As Calia Norton slapped a pile of red, brown and gold leaves with the plastic fanned rake, she noticed the similiarity between the rake and a cage. The leaves being the captured. It haunted her as she continued in a sweeping motion about the yard and she chastised herself for comparing dead leaves to life.

"Where must I go' she whispered, leaning to retrieve a beautifully reddened leaf...'with all this compassion?"

She sat upon the little concrete porch at her front door and continued eyeing the leaf. Its candy-apple hue and its veins. Its beige stem.

"It was once alive, and now it is dead."

Calia ran her long fingers through her short blonde hair, wondering if perhaps she was losing her mind. But she kept thinking about how something dead, could be, well, so beautiful. She thought of all the times, in her fifty years of living, that she'd shown her fellow human beings the most compassion. It was costly, compassion. And Calia was poverty stricken within. No doubt about it. Even she admitted as much.

Calia was tall and lithe. A beauty with naturally beautiful skin and enormous dark eyes. But she was aging. Her age was beginning to show and it mattered to her. It mattered to her that she was not the dewy young woman she'd once been. But the leaf, having lived its life and fallen to the earth, had become even more beautiful. Death, she'd never thought of as beautiful before.

She pulled her purple sweater closed and up close to her neck. Still holding the leaf with her left hand and analyzing it as she held it up toward the pale blue sky. And she did not notice the man who walked from the sidewalk up to where she sat, until he was within inches of her.

The man was short, unshaven and smelled of alcohol. His hair was black as coal and his clothes stank like a fireplace. Calia looked up at the man, dropped the leaf and pulled back in astonishment.

The man smiled and introduced himself. "I'm Frank." He voiced low, and he swayed lightly.

Calia's face went from dread to laughter as she raised herself from the concrete porch and pulled her sweater tight.

"Hi Frank."

"Yeah, so Elton said you's needin' somebody to take care of your yawd."

Calia smiled looking around the yard, assessing her own work. "Yes, Elton was right'...she said suddenly and added, 'what do you charge?"

Frank swung his old body around slowly, eyeing the massive yard and its scattering of leaves.

"I could do 'dis place fer 20 bucks."

"It's a deal." Calia quickly agreed, handing the rake to Frank.

Frank

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