The Leaf

Flowers are grown through the bricks. Each break in the brick led to a new stem, a new color of the flower. Some of the flowers had been picked and placed in holes of surrounding plants. Some plants took to the flowers and began to grow more while other plants simply did not take and would grow new stems just to push the flowers out.

The plants with new stems often grew darker stems. The stems took to their closest surrounding color and the walkways usually were what was closest. Only some breeds of plants took up the mirror aspect that reflected the surroundings. Often if it took up this aspect it also took up the fuzzy gas that the flowers in the walkway put out. The gas differed in color for every plant. Some of the ones nearest had hues of gold on them. The gold had specs of metallic gold within it. 

When you walk through the gas it never hurts. It never feels like anything really. 

The hues radiate sounds when walking through. The sounds were different for each person. Some people heard a voice and some heard a smooth flowing noise. 

Usually, the colors somewhat resembled the sound it would make when walking through it. Often a darker color would be a more striking song and the lighter colors would resemble a more peaceful song. Usually, the metallic colors had a bright noise that constantly changed. 

It's like this for most of everyone, of course, some outliers can't tell what sound they might hear when walking through. Some gardens were coordinated by artists who would place each plant with similar colored ones so that while walking through the garden you could have songs that would flow into each other. 

The clouds are lower today, greener. Each cloud seemed to have a geometric like shape that interacted with the clouds around it. The colors of the ones around the star seemed to be more vibrant and moved faster. The ones closer to the ground were duller and sluggish. The specks in the clouds are a magenta color today. Rounder and larger. Except for the specks around the star which flowed in a pattern of small, oddly, and geometric-like specs.

The flowers that are interwoven among the bricks let off a gas that turns some of the clouds purple from different points of view. The purple and only the purple reflects off the shiny black bricks.

Each brick is like a black mirror, dark, and only reflected certain objects in certain colors. The gardens that outlined the walkway had reflective leaves. Each leaf had a pattern of bricks with glowing dots placed between. 

This common garden is expansive. Each segment having a large tree. The tree in the closest segment was green. Each leaf that came from it a different size. Some floated and some drooped. Some drooped so low children swung from them. At night when they glow a violet-blue, lovers and kids would climb up to the highest leaf they could reach just to sit and watch as the star turned into its new phase. 

The phase, though unpredictable, was always the most beautiful color. I spent years as a kid watching the phase change each night. I once tried to find a way to predict it by writing down what color it changed every night in the hopes of a pattern. The results were inconclusive but I didn't care about that. 

After a while I had a designated leaf I would climb on and I would simply just wait and watch. The prettiest color I ever watched the star phase into was a magnificent purple. The purple wasn't bright, it was near pastel, but the color seemed to be one that I've never seen before. The blue hues in it were just right, not bright but not dull. Once I saw it I never forgot about it.

  I tried a few times to create the color myself with anything I could find. Foods, berries, liquids, cloths. It was never a success but it kept the color in my mind. To this day that's still my favorite color.

  I'm unable to climb to the leaf anymore. It didn't detach and float away yet but I haven't gone up to the leaves in ages. There wasn't a particular reason for this but some days when I walk through the garden I look up to it. I've only seen lovebirds and children on it a few times. I remember when I was a kid I tied a few strings around the stem hoping that it would keep the leaf from ever leaving. It was stupid but it was a leaf I considered to be home. 

Walking over to the tree, I attempt to step on as little of plants as I could but in a garden that's hard to manage. 

Once at the tree I search for the closest leaf to the ground. There's a green one of medium size about as long as my legs. 

Wrapping my legs around the stem and pulling my body up I grab onto the next leaf which was quite large. This one may have been bigger than me and was slightly floating so I grabbed on to it and pulled myself up. With each leaf, I got higher up. 

The leaf with the string attached to it was near me, only a few leaves away. A few children were playing on a leaf below me who didn't stare while I flung myself upon each leaf. 

The higher I got the more flowers I could see. They were tiny flowers that coated the stems with their glowing purple hue. As I got higher the song got louder. 

I had forgotten about the singing flowers up here. It was one of my favorite hue songs. The song was pale and soft but not boring. It was smooth. 

The leaf was next to me. 

I latched my hands onto it and smiled. There was a tear in my eye. Pulling myself up onto the floating leaf I saw the new strings attached to its stem. Some of the strings signed with initials and plus signs. 

It was magnificent. I laid on the leaf all day waiting for the star to phase. Now remembering what made this leaf home to me.