Modern Romanticism

A shadow has been extending from a motionless figure. How long has it been going for? How long has she been seated there, counting leaves that descend due to meeting their time? In the corporeal world, it has been a mere minute. But in her mind, her presence in this position, this stagnation, has been ongoing. Months? Years? In her mind, it can be comparable to an infinity.

Autumn is all around. In some month’s time, winter will be here and she might be noticed counting snowflakes as they’re falling. They’ll find their spot on someone’s car, someone’s arm, someone’s roof. But they’ll melt, they’ll fade, the same as the leaves she counts during this current season. Cold is all around, and this cold will get worse with the details of her stare, where there’s something similar. No tears fall, though we see agony. We see a face that holds multiple creases. We have been shared no specifics, but we can recognize something. All it takes is another pair of eyes, another person to give a closer look.

But who will? All the eyes of the world are on their own paths, while she sits here, counting what will soon be dust. She counts individual leaves that are individual pieces of a greater life, a tree, while all people on the planet she shares with them might be counting their footsteps. Their pace, forward it might be believed to be, for in her stare she faces also a sunset.

All other people’s worlds are sitting on this planet’s shoulders, strengthened by future days. They have awoken to the sounds of birds. They have awoken to their normalcy. Whereas she, within her mind where fog has spread, in her heart where stains have set, her eyes keep open to an unchanging shade of blue.

Her hair, unkempt in its shapelessness, is scattered in its tresses over her upper body. Her face, without presentation of a single cosmetic can signal a belief in its inconvenience. Or perhaps she has no care in the world to exhibit a kind of mask. What could be its need, or even anyone’s want for it, when to plainness of an inner darkness or despair, sometimes a realization takes place where it, too, be can be displayed just as plainly?

She says, “I wish I could stop losing count,” alluding to the leaves that are falling. As it goes on, with the pupils in her eyes shifting direction at more of a rapid pace as if to increase the accuracy in counting the leaves, she heaves one long sigh from her throat. Her eyes had stopped shifting in random directions before the release of that lungful of air. After that, she starts it all over again, moving her eyes to the falling leaves, and then releasing another exhalation when she, as it can be guessed to be, has lost count.

Upon each time she exhales a drawn out sigh, the wind picked itself up beforehand. It blew leaves at a speed that made it impossible for her to count them. A gust from wherever blanketed the ground before her in all the colors of decaying brightness. As if fire could die, or if the sunset, too, might be shown for what it stands for, being the death of another day. As it will become darker and shadows will encompass all objects and lifeforms, she might or might not stay. She might or she might not remain here to count those leaves, even if it is through futile attempts.