WATER FOUNTAINS 

Fountains give.

As soon as they’re turned on, they start giving.

As long as there’s water, they keep giving.

They give shape and sound to water. They give us respite, bringing a splash of nature to busy city streets. They give birds free drinks of fresh water, and happiness to children on the hottest days.

In their absolute selflessness, even when they cry, fountains make sure to keep their tears to themselves.

   

FALL LEAVES 

They aren’t quite dead when they separate from their branches. Their chlorophyll blood will take a few more days to dry up completely. They will fall slowly to the ground, and join the others. Romantic and photogenic as it may seem, this is really the most tragic season in the life of plants; not even Flora, their goddess, can help.

A sidewalk lined with fallen leaves is not, as one may think, a nursing home for elderly leaves to gather and reminisce about the old times, and soften the path for kid’s bikes and old people’s walkers.

Let’s imagine life from the viewpoint of, say, a sycamore leaf. We’ll call it Sy. Fall has started one week ago, and Sy begins to turn yellow, then light orange. A few more days and now it hangs to the tree by a thread. Finally, a vigorous gust of wind sends it airborne. So it flies for a while and, horror of horrors, lands on a pile of dead, decomposing leaves. Sy remains there for three long days. When another gust of wind finally blows Sy away from that ghostly site, it also places it a long distance from its mother, the tree, which in turn feels lonely and exposed, as it becomes a skeleton.

At this moment, when the end is coming, being close to a loving mother would make a big difference. But as the days go by, Sly gets blown farther and farther away from the tree, to the other side of a hill, where it can no longer see its mother’s balding canopy.

This new knowledge should not keep you, reader, from enjoying the beautiful foliage of fall. It just goes to show that tragedy is, sometimes, painted with glorious colors.

LOST LETTERS 

Letters rarely get lost, but those who do are in for a real odyssey.

What follows is a true story: a letter addressed to a Mr. Heck Golden Coriander was put in a mailbox on October 9, 1964. The sender was identified as Laura (no last name) from some place out of town.

As the letter fell into the mailbox, it apologized to a large brown envelope it had landed on, and greeted the remaining correspondence. Not a word, except for a shush here and there, as it was quite late at night.

Next morning someone unlocked the box to remove the mail, and the letter woke up with the sunshine coming in. Since it had been the last letter deposited in that box before collection, it was right at the top of the pile. So as it was being transported to the truck, it slid from the tray and landed on the sidewalk.

And there it stayed for days. It was stepped on a few times, sniffed by dogs, rained on, had its corners nibbled by rats, and finally noticed by another mailman, who picked it up and took it to be sorted and delivered.

However, after being exposed to the elements, the address on the envelope wasn’t too clear and it ended up in the wrong house. The family who lived there, the Olsons, was on vacation. The letter sat in their dark mailbox and waited. It wasn’t alone, though: a small spider had made the mailbox its home, and kept running back and forth over the letter who, up to that moment, hadn’t realized how ticklish it was.

The torture lasted two weeks, when the Olsons returned. Fortunately, Mr. Coriander was a neighbor and they knew where he lived.

That same day, Mr. Olson took the letter to Mr. Coriander’s house, where he learned that the man had passed away. Mr. Olson sent the letter back to Laura, with a note attached, explaining what had happened.

The letter never got there. Its fate is unknown. It may have gotten lost again, or thrown itself into a furnace in desperation. Nobody will ever know its contents, what the relationship was between Laura and Coriander, or if Laura even existed.

GRASS

Two cows moo.

They don’t know why.

Or maybe they do.

They heard about the slaughterhouse; the word came as tiny vibrations in the blades of grass.

The two cows stand side by side looking in the same direction, looking at the lighthouse on the edge of a cliff where the pasture ends.

Once, they heard, a cow fell down that cliff into the sea.

That cow, they heard, woke up hungry in the middle of a very dark night and grazed her way to death.

The two cows know their end is near. They can’t bribe the farmer; all they have is milk.

If they get greedy, they’ll plunge into the sea.

If they just stand on the grass like cows, it’s the slaughterhouse.

Salvation is above, but cows are too heavy with kindness to float like stars.