The Third Floor Bedroom

     This piece carried me down a path I had not expected. When I started I thought I had a plan, but the story proved me wrong. I found myself having to figure out how to bring the end of the story back to match the beginning. I chose to edit this piece because I truly enjoyed writing it the first time around. I enjoyed using extensive imagery. I also enjoyed personify the wind and the leaf giving them each their own distinct character.
 

The Third Floor Bedroom

                It all began when someone left the window open. It is still a mystery as to who, or what, even opened the window. All that is known is that there is no doubt that the third floor bedroom window was open.

                Outside the sun was high in the sky, but the wind was howling. It blew the leaves right off the trees without a hint of mercy. These leaves of every color, red, yellow, orange, and brown, danced effortlessly in the air as the wind blew them left and right. They danced and danced in what was left of the autumn sun.

                Eventually, when the leaves grew tired, they dropped limply to the ground. The leaves had danced and danced, but their dancing days were done. All that was left for them to do was lay and rest. Every colorful inch yearned to rest on the ground soaking in the ray of the burning sun. Mischievous as the wind was, it would not let them be. It howled ferociously as it pushed and pulled on the tired leaves. The wind wanted to see them dance once more. With the wind beneath them, the leaves began to once more tumble about.

                Yet on every tree there is one that is different. One that yearns not to lay limp on the ground, but rather to twirl in the air. This little red leaf wanted to dance. There were minutes of light left on this day, and this leaf planned to dance them away. It whispered to the wind in its little leaf voice, “Come pick me once more so I can dance and dance.”

                With the last rays of lights beaming over the hill, the wind picked up the little red leaf one last time. Higher and higher the little leaf danced, until the houses below looked like dots on a map. Suddenly, darkness enclosed the world below. Night had fallen and the day was done. The wind ceased its howling as sleep beckoned its name for tomorrow was not far away. When the last bits of light disappeared in the night, the wind disappeared with it.

                The little red leaf hovered suspended for just on moment above the dark world below. But the moment soon passed and all that was left was to fall. To fall down down down and watch the specks of the world grow larger each second. To fall down down down to where there was no dancing or light for hours to come. Falling was not graceful feat, the leaf wished to dance but instead it plummeted and tumbled out of control. It flailed about to the left then to the right, but always down down down.

                 On the third floor, the window was open. It was the window to the blue house with a white picket fence and a large oak tree where the children used to play. As the little red leaf fell towards the house, it had no intention of what was to come. Right as the leaf passed by the open window, it caught a draft which pulled it through the window into the house. The leaf was done falling when it hit the hardwood floors of the abandoned room.

                The little red leaf was not only done falling, it was done dancing. The wind could never find it here in the dark room all alone. It was doomed to lay there on the floor forever for there was no way out. The window remained open there was no wind in the house to lift up the leaf and carry it out. As the little red leaf lay there on the ground, it began to rot.