Just nine of us met at J Read's today for our usual mixture of eclectic stories. Sue started us of with her story of the passage of a fallen leaf along a river. Sheila reminded us of the firework display in our childhood compared to today. Ann's story was that of a balloon released in the air brought two people together. Sally's strange affair said to be true of a pair of Wellington's in the trifle. John took us on a trip up the Amazon not to find a mysterious tribe this time but to find a treasure but ended up a disaster. Joan's story told of the difficulty of finding a story for a creative writing group. Rosemary stole out of a hotel in the dead of night to go in a hot air balloon. Joan E recounted the fortunes of Strictly Come Dancing. My story was of a romantic meeting of a village girl and a gypsy.
Next month 28th February "Not to worry"
Sue's story won most votes.
‘AND FLOATED . . .’
It was Autumn once again in the mountains. The air was cool and clear, the sun shone and the trees clothing the steep slopes from the tree line down to the deep streams which tumbled beneath were turning to kaleidoscopic colours of pale green, gold, orange and deepest red. It was breathtakingly beautiful and the animals and birds which abounded beneath and throughout this rich canopy seemed to possess an added joyfulness in their Technicolor world.
Low down on a slope, perched perilously on a rocky outcrop above a clear stream, a small sapling covered in leaves of the deepest red swayed gently in the breeze and slowly one of these leaves shook itself free from the twig it had been clinging to so precariously and gently spiralled down and down towards the babbling waters below, where it touched the cool surface gently and settled before slowly sailing along in the current. It twisted and turned lazily and floated slowly along, passing overhanging boughs and ferns as it went. Here, in this benign and calm world, animals and birds came without fear to drink from the shallows lapping the gently sloping, grassy banks. Here a kingfisher dived from one of the overhanging branches, returning triumphantly to its perch with a tasty morsel for its lunch; a shy doe and her half-grown faun bent their gentle heads to slake their thirst, the faun starting back in surprise as the leaf bumped gently against its nose before twirling gracefully on in the current. The faun blinked its huge, soft eyes and gazed after it before returning its attention to the water.
Now the stream was hurrying a little more and the leaf began to twist more urgently until suddenly rocks appeared at either side of the brook and across its path. The noise grew to a dull roaring sound and the leaf spun abruptly to a halt, caught on one of the half-submerged rocks, before being forced over and tumbling down and down in the cascade of water rushing into the pool below. The pool was deep and clear away from the tumbling waterfall and there was no sign of the leaf which had been mercilessly swept over the edge. Then, some distance from the fall, it appeared, bobbing merrily up from the depths and was swept more hurriedly away into an increasingly large stream. This was more noisy and bustling, and the leaf danced along with blurred images of green and gold overhead, the banks now rocky, precipitous and devoid of thirsty wildlife.
On and on the leaf tumbled and now the banks widened and once again became grassy, but the tumbling waters were now strewn with bigger and bigger rocks and boulders and the noise was deafening. The poor leaf was bumped and jammed against boulders, amongst branches and other debris, but somehow always broke free and tumbled on, sometimes upright but more often upside down or rolling over and over in the rapids.
By now the banks were difficult to see on either side and there was no stopping this merciless body of water which hurtled onwards at breakneck speed. The noise grew and grew and the poor leaf was becoming waterlogged, finding it more difficult to bob up into the sunlight after each encounter with an obstacle in its path. The sun seemed to lose its brightness and it was becoming misty and damp, the noise more intolerable by the second. The poor leaf was struggling along in a damp, cloudy world until abruptly everything vanished as it tipped over the edge and was mercilessly driven down and down for endless seconds until the cascading falls hit the waters below and the leaf was seen no more.
Watchers hadn’t noticed this one small wonder of nature as they bobbed in boats a safe distance from the falls, or stood at the top of this spectacular display, huddled in raincoats to keep the spray off. Their attention was riveted on the huge majesty of the waters and the rainbows they produced, and they had no time to see the end of the journey for one small leaf from the trees so far upstream.
