A story about one very stubborn leaf
Every autumn, the old maple tree dropped its leaves.
It dropped the red ones.
It dropped the orange ones.
It dropped the yellow ones.
It even dropped the little brown ones that looked like they had already given up on life.
Plip. Plop. Flutter. Flap.
Down they went.
All except one.
One small, bright red leaf clung to the very end of a branch.
“No,” said the leaf.
The wind stopped.
“What do you mean, no?” asked the wind.
“I’m not falling.”
“But it’s autumn.”
“I know.”
“The other leaves have fallen.”
“I noticed.”
“The squirrels are collecting acorns.”
“Good for them.”
“The geese are flying south.”
“Have a lovely trip!”
The wind puffed out its cheeks.
“I don’t think you understand how this works.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly,” said the leaf. “You blow. I stay. We all go about our business.”
And with that, the leaf gripped the branch a little tighter.
The wind went to find someone more reasonable to bother.
The next morning, a squirrel scampered along the branch.
“You’re still here?” he asked.
“Obviously.”
“You’re going to miss the best part!”
“What best part?”
“Falling!”
The leaf stared at him.
“Have you hit your head?”
“No! Falling is wonderful. You spin and twirl, and sometimes you land on someone’s nose!”
The squirrel demonstrated by tumbling off the branch and landing in a pile of leaves.
He popped up wearing three leaves on his head.
“See?”
The red leaf was unimpressed.
“I have a perfectly good view from up here.”
The squirrel shrugged and went off to hide an acorn in a place he would absolutely forget.
Days passed.
The air grew colder.
The tree’s branches grew bare.
One by one, the remaining leaves let go.
The red leaf watched them float through the air, tumbling and dancing until they landed softly on the ground.
Some landed in the grass.
Some landed in puddles.
One landed directly on a dog’s bottom.
The dog looked offended.
The leaf tried not to laugh.
It failed.
But when the wind returned, the little leaf held on tighter than ever.
“I’m not ready!” it shouted.
The wind softened.
“Not ready for what?”
The leaf opened its mouth.
Then closed it.
It wasn’t sure.
It had never been on the ground before.
What if the ground was cold?
What if it was lonely?
What if it landed in a puddle and got soggy?
What if everyone forgot about it?
The wind waited.
For once, it didn’t blow.
“I just like it here,” the leaf whispered.
“I know,” said the wind.
The old maple tree rustled gently.
“I liked having you here, too.”
The leaf looked back at the branch.
It remembered the warm summer days, the rain, the birds who had rested beside it, and the sunlight that had made it glow like a tiny red lantern.
“I don’t want everything to change,” it said.
The tree’s branches swayed.
“Everything changes, little one. Even me.”
The leaf thought about that.
Then it noticed something.
The branch was still there.
The tree was still there.
And beyond the bare branches, the sky looked bigger than it ever had before.
“Will I disappear when I fall?” the leaf asked.
“No,” said the tree. “You’ll become part of something else.”
That sounded suspiciously like the sort of thing grown-ups said when they didn’t want to answer a question.
The leaf narrowed its little pointy tip.
“That’s a very vague answer.”
The tree chuckled.
“I’ve been growing here since before your great-great-great-grandmother was a bud. Trust me. I’m good at this.”
The leaf considered its options.
Stay forever?
That seemed difficult.
Fall immediately?
That seemed dramatic.
Perhaps there was another way.
“Wind?” the leaf called.
“Yes?”
“Could you do it gently?”
The wind smiled.
“I can try.”
“And no throwing me into a dog’s bottom.”
“I make no promises about dogs.”
“Wind!”
“All right, all right!”
The wind gathered itself.
It breathed across the branches, softly at first, then a little stronger.
The leaf loosened its grip.
For one tiny moment, it hung in the air.
Then—
WHOOSH!
Down it went!
It spun.
It twirled.
It somersaulted twice.
It flew upside down past the squirrel, who shouted, “WHEEEEE!”
And it landed.
Not in a puddle.
Not on a dog’s bottom.
But on the nose of a little girl walking beneath the tree.
The girl stopped.
She crossed her eyes to look at the leaf.
Then she giggled.
“Hello, little leaf.”
She gently lifted it from her nose and tucked it into her coat pocket.
The leaf couldn’t see the tree anymore.
It couldn’t see the branch.
It couldn’t even see the sky.
But it could hear the little girl’s footsteps, and it could feel the warmth of her pocket.
For the first time all autumn, the leaf wondered what might happen next.
And that, it decided, wasn’t such a terrible feeling after all.
High above, the old maple tree stood quietly in the wind.
Its branches were bare.
Its roots reached deep into the earth.
And somewhere inside its trunk, a thousand tiny buds were already dreaming of spring.
THE END.
She is the author of The Ghost Girl Who Never Fully Left, a funny, tender, slightly haunted collection about memory, loneliness, relationships, sensitivity, and the invisible things we carry with us. Her work has appeared in publications including Written Tales Magazine, Sundial Magazine, Tales from the Moonlit Path, Phantom Flash Fiction, and Gone Lawn, with forthcoming work in Književne novine in Serbia. She is also a regular columnist for Anglozine and is currently developing What We Carry, a literary project exploring family history, language, migration, cultural inheritance, and belonging across generations.
- The Leaf That Refused to Fall - November 2, 2026
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