Red Leaves

RED LEAVES (a short story by Brian Hanson)


        Chlorophyll failed these leaves. I look at them and feel my failure.  Christmas is coming, and all the leaves are red.  Everything green taken from the earth is taken from me.  According to my green less existence I have failed the world and who cares about the camels and the needles.  For all the impermeable needles, the leaves are red and nothing else matters.  I can remember when the earth was green and all was well.  The earth, shaded from the sun, could not take the color away from me.  The world was what I wanted it to be, artificially green with artificial hearts.  Even in the winter I could pay for evergreen grass, which was the light in this dead neighborhood.  That was then and this is now. Christmas is coming and the leaves are red and my grass is dead.  Foreclosure on the horizon and I reminisce of the past.  Sparkles of glass lit up my house; darkness has now set in.  This time was the root of happiness.  Now, I feel my heart and notice for once my circulating blood.  It is cold, and these leaves are red. Every one! Every one! The earth shares with me a colorless life. Well, there might as well be no color. Can’t afford it.  Everything has a price, and so I ponder of a life without matter.  In doing so, I think of myself. There is no matter, and I don’t matter. Well, not anymore at least.  My type of existence does not matter in this productive country. I am no longer productive.  I am no longer. 
         As a child, I dreamed. How Naïve I was.  I wanted to be a painter because I loved color.  The color of grass in a vast field filled my little heart.  The warm blood circulated faster with every glance of the harmonious colors.  Bumps on my skin would rise and imitate the hills of the earth.  These hills, painted green by the hand of God.  I wanted to paint it, for I am part or particle of God, right?  Well, this country has no desire for colors, but one. We are part of another God, and so am I.  This God made me happy, and I could fill the space around me. As I child, I thought as a child.  I thought God should fill inside of me.  Empty and shallow my house became. I sold every damn thing.  At least previously, my childish dreams of painting things were absent in my mind.  I had better things, and I mean great things, to think about.  This world is not filled with fantasy. If I want fantasy, I will buy it. Well, not anymore. 
         You see, three months ago, I lost my job. This job colored my world and allowed Mr. Chlorophyll and me to do our duties.  I lost my job for no reason at all. I was fired. Fired! For What? I don’t have these answers, and I don’t care.  I stand in my empty house looking through the window, and I don’t care. I see red leaves, and I don’t care.  This glass is transparent, and I am not.  Transparency existed in my youth.  I could see through a wall. Now, I can’t see my hand in front of my face. Yet, I don’t care.  I lost my job and everything with it.  With all the color gone things aren’t so black and white. Happiness is not finite and lucidity becomes opaque.  Just like these red leaves, they might be orange.  I lost my job.  I didn’t particularly enjoy my job. Am I supposed to?  Steadfast repetition of life gave me the ability to buy a world of equal existence.  A world that did not exist in front of my eyes was black and white like I said, but it was filled with color. Outside my window, I would see green trees that stayed in its place. It needed to stay in its place.  I needed my job; it was my place. Now, I am unemployed.
         As I look out the window, I think of my family. Ah, my family. I have not pondered of their existence in years. Well, ever since I left my father and mother like Genesis says to do.  My job was my wife.  From my ribs, my job was.  I wonder what my family would think of my new status in society. They should come and visit, but they have no place to sit in my empty house.  My family laughed at my childish dreams of painting the world as God did.  Today, I laugh even harder.  My father would surely shake his head.  The emptiness of my house would not impress him very much.  My family shall not know; I shall continue to look through this transparent glass and see the leaves red and fallen.  As I turn, I too shall fall. I shall fall far from here, metaphysically, but physically to the floor. 
         The funny thing is, I feel the same. I feel the same as before meaning I feel nothing at all.  But, I lost my job. If anything I should be doing, feeling is the thing.  Yet, as before, I feel nothing, and until now I did not know what feeling was. I just know, now know, that I did not and do not feel a thing.  Do the red leaves feel being red? Do they feel the wind?  They are shaken by the wind of a cooler change and changed to a color of red. 
         Christmas is coming, and my family wants to share quality time.  Every year, I miss this quality time for making a life of quality.  This year, it doesn’t matter.  What qualifies as quality?  Surely, I have nothing of quality, just walls that surround nothing.  I sold every damn thing.  I guess I will go to a family Christmas at father’s house, a house with walls that surround everything.  Yet, it feels empty like my house, but what am I saying.  This house has everything, and I can’t feel anyway.  Maybe my family would just be happy to see me.  Every year, I tell them holidays are a mandatory time to work for me.  My family will ask questions about being off work? I will say nothing.  Nothing!
         On the eve of Christmas, I arrive at my parents’ house against my will.  They are surely surprised and representatively overjoyed, but I could careless.  They do not know the truth, and surely they would not love the truth.  Their truth is all around them.  Father talks of business, and my mother talks about what she is supposed to talk about as well.  After my parents feel my life should have some importance, they ask me questions of my business.  I lie, and I tell a story that ring bells in their ears.  I could feel their pride; I could finally feel.  Business is better than ever; stocks are grower higher with their pride in me.  I ask them if they remember my dreams of being a painter.  They laugh and say yes.  I tell them I wanted to paint the hills green, but now I could paint it with money.  They laugh.  “Now, you should be a painter,” my father screams while we all laugh out loud.  For a moment, I believe my story sitting on authentic Italian leather molding me into a place I want to be.  They tell me how much they miss me, but they understand my absence due to hard work.  I didn’t understand my father as a child, but with my job, I did.  There are more important things in life like myself.  My father gave me the words of Emerson, and he told me to be self-reliant.  Myself became the center of the universe and don’t we all believe it.  My mother understood my father as she understands me.  All through the night, I am silent of my real story.  They know nothing of the red leaves I saw.  To them, everything in my life is green with all the leaves on the trees.  In the presence of my parents, I forget my empty house as theirs is filled to capacity. This fills me with joy, a joy I have not felt in three months.  Christmas is truly a wonderful time of year. 
         The act is over, and the curtains shut.  I am home and Christmas is over. Reality is my truth now, and I have no one to lie to. Except, maybe I can lie to myself.  I can live in denial.  I can spend money I don’t have; I can buy things on credit and somebody else can pay it.  Denial can be a truly wonderful thing.  Anyway, there are many truths, actually one truth per person.  What I believe is the truth.  There is a problem.  Denial is hard in an empty house.  The emptiness of this house is real.  As I unload the presents my parents have given, it looks so small in an empty house.  I realize the insignificance of these presents, and how small they are in the vastness of this empty space. There is no denying; the leaves are red.  I look at the solo tree in my yard that bears this sinister red.  I dream of cutting it down, perhaps, I should burn it. I should burn this vile tree, this vile life.  Why did the leaves change color? Why did I lose my job, my miserable little job?  I will destroy this tree.  I will look through this transparent window and be blinded with a vastness of green. 
         In this mental state, my childish ambitions drive me to the nearest store.  I purchase the largest canvas, the best brushes, and the most expensive paint in the store.  Tonight will be the night. I will paint the hills green as God did.  On my canvas there will no seasons, no tilt of the earth’s axis.  I will need no special evergreen grass.  The greenness of these hills will be immortal, and they will appear as an orgy of colors blinding all who see.  Tonight, I am not part of God.  I am God.  As the new God in my universe my first priority is to destroy my tree.  I will ban change.  I will have no more red leaves to look at through my hideous, transparent window.  When I arrive at my house, I slam my car door and run inside my empty house as if my life depended upon it.  I begin painting as If I’m possessed.  I paint in the middle of the living room in the middle of my empty house with the small presents against the wall.  I flood the canvas with green, as if it’s my blood.  The hills take shape, and there are no damn trees in this world.  The sun shines illuminating the canvas reflecting the colors of the world, the color of my life.  I paint for hours into the night.  My natural talent impresses me.  I wonder what further studies could have grown this talent into.  I feel myself.  My blood rushes through my veins as I rushed home to paint.  I feel alive. 
         Early in the morning I finish my only piece of art, my only masterpiece.  I step back and glance at my work.  There was nothing more beautiful in all the earth.  The painting was like a mirror reflecting color, reflecting myself.  In that moment, I look around.  I look around my empty house.  Besides the small presents by the wall, the painting stands alone in the middle of existence like the tree outside my window.  I realize the painting does not belong in this empty house.  An empty house remains empty.  It will only collect objects on the outside.  This house will not accept such things of beauty.  As beautiful life can be my house and others remain empty. This house must remain empty.  It must.  The world will have it no other way.
         I don’t want to say much.  All I can say is blood as red as the leaves outside my window dripped from my head.  I fell flat on my painting in the middle of my almost empty house.  The blood painted the hills red; God was very disappointed with my previous choice of color.  The leaves on my painting became red as if I painted what I saw.  And, what I saw was the end of my life.  It was as transparent as the glass I was looking through.  Yeah, it may be easy to call me shallow, self-centered, or even greedy.  But, we don’t know any other way.