In my haste I forgot to rake the leaves. With so many more on the trees it won’t be long before my lawn will fill. As the clouds roll in under the stars, my bet is by morning I will need to use shovel and squeegee to clear them. All that wet, all that slime and mold; my, such a soup as this would even make a rat sick.
I wish I could light them on fire.
The rats too.
They’ll burn faster than I can ever think to pick them up. I also like the smell. I like the sound too; like fingers snapping.
But if I want to burn my leaves I’ll have to get a permit. I’ll need to have a hose at the ready.
I’m required by law to wear goggles and a mask. I can only burn is a designated area at a designated time. Etc. Etc. All that red tape is just too damn much trouble. All that government dictate makes burning way too clinical and sterile. I just want to burn. I like to burn.
I like to burn for fun and for curiosity. Maybe I should burn the house down so it can spread to the lawn then I need not accessorize in any special manner or pay any money to the city for an activity I enjoy.
Just a thought. But then again some busy body neighbor will just call the fire department and my fun will be extinguished.
I should have seen that coming.
If I just let all the leaves fall I wonder just how deep the pile will be. Maybe to my mid-calf, but at least an inch or two over my ankles. That would sure be a lot of raking.
It’ll be worth it. It’ll be worth the slow reveal. Just to see the trees bare themselves to all and stand naked and erect during the long chill of an October breeze. Stark and alone at first then melding together in a grey, almost invisible, but certainly opaque community. Anonymous but inviting anyone and everyone to see through them to what they inhibited in sight from the spring before.
My trees are long and lean very much like her. Tall and slender and smooth; her skin and polished mahogany, at sight, seem to be one in the same. She told me she modeled some in college. That I can believe. And she was working this job to merely fund her acting lessons.
Her dreams seemed as lofty as her gaze.
But we all know she is a bartender with a habit who will allow anyone to dip for her nectar as long as the number is right.
She was eager to please and please we both did the first couple of rounds. As she relaxed in the glow of cooling body fluids she dozed off a little and that is why she didn’t resist the ether.
Limp, she still came instinctively not once but twice more and by then I was spent.
In the muted moonlight I have conformed her body in the trees. Her long shapely legs and supple arms almost match the branches where they are pinned. I doubt any passersby or paranoid neighbor will ever notice. This yard is wooded. The pieces that are her body are scattered and pinned at such angles that are well hidden to the naked eye.
Even if some animals get a morsel or two; I’m confident, after all I’ve done it before and before that.
But I just have to say I’m more proud of this one though. I know it is shallow thing for me to say, to take so much credit for my work, but it is clearly due to her looks and exquisite build. She wasn’t like the others; she was different than my normal type. She was devoid of the ‘nice young baby fat yet firm and cushy plumpness’ I normally go for.
She had almost no body fat so it made it easier for me to make the transformation. Besides the cutting; I am so especially pleased with how I have tucked her torso away, and those stunning budding breasts just high enough in the oak and yet low enough for me to run my fingers around and reminisce.
Well, at least for a few extra days thanks to the falling temperatures.
But as I look out to my gallery of nature. I wonder too, if I should take some time off. I wonder if I should lay low. Enough have gone missing that there is a buzz going around the town.
Even if the police eventually tie me to her and the bar; no one saw us leave together; we just talked a lot.
Even if the police make a search warrant they won’t find her in the trees. They’re not that smart to look above the possible grave in their profile.
Yet, despite all my carefully taken precautions into making this little allusion to a game of hide and seek, I wonder truly if I didn’t, in my exuberance get too bold with this one.
Maybe I shouldn’t have made a lamp out of her head.
No, I should have. I quite like it and it does still give off a relaxed and content glow.
No, the lamp itself is fine; I think though, I shouldn’t keep it so close to the front window.

By Joseph J. Patchen
josephjpatchen.weebly.com