Arthus

With every leaf that fell from the tree, Arthus felt more and more old. He was weary, and his breath was slow. He ached all over. His tongue was dry and his toes were perpetually cold. His nose itched but scratching hurt. His eyes seemed dry and slow to turn in his head. But he sat at his window every day, from ten in the morning to two in the afternoon, simply watching the leaves as they turned to gold and amber and fell from the solitary tree outside. He would take great pleasure in watching every one descend – slow, graceful, gentle. The leaves were his greatest pleasure in life.

The rest of the year he occupied himself with other things – reading books, writing to relatives, even – from time to time – switching on his television to see another unfaithful adaptation of a great work of literature. But the autumn was different. It was the season he lived for, he often thought, because without the autumn the last ten years of his life would have had little meaning, just a continuing and meandering stream of thoughts and activities without meaning.
But autumn was different. Arthus had an important task in the autumn, and for as long as he could remember (which, admittedly, wasn’t very long these days) he had watched the change and fall of the leaves. He had his chair moved as close to the window as he could whilst still being able to stand up and carry himself slowly to the bathroom and kitchen, just so he could observe the leaves. His relatives thought he was becoming increasingly eccentric, as each year his interest in the leaves took on more and more important to him. He had begun to talk about it a few years ago, and now it was difficult for anyone to have a conversation with him without his bringing up the leaves.

But, you see, they didn’t understand that the leaves actually WERE that important. They were the most important thing in Arthus’ life. They were more important than his health, his visitors, his diet, his exercise – anything he could think of that people proposed as interferences to his October and November. They were vitally important. They were his one purpose.

Because if he didn’t watch the leaves, no-one would. No-one would see them drop and fall. No-one would watch the first flame-wreathed leaf drop to the ground. No-one would note the gradual daily acceleration in numbers, or how certain colours all seemed to fall as one. No-one would witness the heartbreak of a strong wind, demolishing whole avenues of glorious colour from the vista of Arthus’ window. No-one would see the piles of leaves carried away in the rain, floating down the driveway and into the road, out of sight and gone forever.

His was a noble occupation. These thousands of miracles that happened each year, unseen by anyone but him – these were what kept him alive, and with every breath he took from the world, every sigh he contributed, he knew that he was perpetuating his one passion, his one calling. The reason Arthus had been born, almost a century before, was to watch these leaves fall.