Blog 3 - Option B

An Early Fall

The plum trees extended their tired, thirsty branches towards the skies with their last morsels of energy remaining. They had been starved of nutrients over the past days. It had been cloudy numerous times, but no rain had fallen. They cried out with their purple flowers that were slowly succumbing to the ghastly yellow of the ground. The noble leaves, refusing to be biological peons, even in their last days turned golden, not yellow, golden. Golden was much nicer, more befitting.
The birds and foxes under the trees, seeking refuge from the heat and famine resented their situation. They eyed the dying grasses with contempt. "It's your fault! Why couldn't you just grow?" Their expressions showed their fury at the ground. They were more naive than the regal plum trees. The trees whose infinite years showered them with aloof wisdom knew that they were dying, but the animals refused to understand what mother nature had allowed. Tough love indeed... Like a child who doesn't understand why their knee hurts after falling the birds cried. The foxes, stubborn pubescent and full of angst, wallowed in self pity.
Watching the seen from a slight distance Alvin couldn't help but frown. He would be laughing like hell, if his own feelings didn't mimic the trees' and animals'. He too was suffering. His belly was shriveling from existence. His light-tan skin was caked in dirt and the humidity catalyzed an amazing sweat. He was on the hill across from the pasture. His niece, 17 years younger than himself, was anxious to continue picking the wrinkled, brownish tomatoes. They too we shriveling. She smiled at him, too used to hunger to know better.
He surveyed the field stopping to watch the plum trees. He focused on the tallest and oldest tree, apparently planted by a dead great-great grandfather. Tracing up the slanting trunk towards the branches he saw the cooling wind take off the first leaf of the tree. It fell serenely to the ground, large, silky, and an elegant, aristocratic shade of fading purple. He was overcome with awe.
He should have been upset. With trees dying early, his family too, or at least his frail skeleton of a grandfather, or his niece Foliage, still tugging on his pants, would die. It would have upset him, watching his future fall with the leaf, except -
"It's so damn beautiful," Alvin professed from his chapped lips, almost in a whisper. "It's like out of a movie."