Haunted by the Chestnut Leaves

O.K. Mantz

The malachite hue of a chestnut leaf strangely scintillated against the backdrop of a shadowed hand, producing writhing figures on the wooden floor. A line of light danced upwards, then down the stem, bleeding like an exterior vein onto the pale wrist that gingerly balanced the leaf. Tracing worn and faded scars, the stream of light branched out until flowing in sprinkles onto an eccentrically weary, yet jittery character seated on a cheap and asthenic chair. His knee shot up and down, his heel hammering into the floor like a silent convulsion, and his hands twitched in his lap as though possessed by some irresistibly cogent nightmare. Vigilantly, the man stared at the white sheets in the bed before him. Shadows whispered from beneath the wooden boards, leaning in from the dark walls, creating such an impenetrable darkness as though the room was almost swallowed by an abyss. He peeled his eyelids back, forcing his sere eyes to glare at the curves beneath the sheets, gradually adumbrating the woman that slept gracefully amongst the shadows.

A breath escaped between her longing lips and her bosom rose and fell as though at the mercy and whims of her dreams. Her walnut hair lay sprawled out upon the alabaster landscape of her pillow and soft, delicate hands curled and grasped at the silky fabric. So gentle she appeared! So frail amidst the black of night! Her eyelids fluttered, but the vision was her own—though her body wrestled to escape, only she could witness the intensity of that tumultuous river of imagination. Fair skin dressed the woman in silks of her own; thinly crimson lips burst forth from her visage like an orchestra of colour; and every feature of her form was so elegantly designed…

He blinked, wetting his burning pupils, but tore them back open again to rest his gaze on the woman once more. The most unnatural thing was beauty, and yet her beauty seemed to be the most natural, as though the world itself produced her, was infused with her, had gently captured her essence, and would shatter the moment that she then struggled for air and perished. But he proved so intricately intertwined with her that if she departed, taking the natural world with her, he would be thrust into a state of eternal despair, a misery with such depth, that he would consume himself forever.

“I must go…” he whispered. The wind produced by his tongue fled from his throat and was dispelled into the atmosphere before him. Gingerly, the breeze glided over to the bed and dropped softly onto the sheets. “How can I remain…?”

His head twitched and his heel thumped silently harder, the sporadic jitter of his hands becoming quicker and more pronounced. Curling his lower lip into his mouth, he twisted his countenance into a frown, clamping his teeth into the thin flesh until blood began to seep out and discolour his gums.

“I can no longer bear this weight…” the man choked, convulsed in his chair, and then regained his anxious composure. “Away…”

Movement forced his head to snap forward and he watched with wider eyes the rustling of the sheets. The woman twisted, writhing as the shadows recoiled into the corners of the space, until she lifted her head and blinked, dispelling the weariness and the stark vision from her reality. Sighing, she grunted, but placed her fragile palm against her chin.

“Penthos?” she whispered, squinting in the darkness. “Why are you up?”

The man let his lower lip recurl to its normal position and sucked his cheeks inward to present a ghastly face and flush the blood down his throat. Shuddering, he muttered something unintelligible. His face flushed a pale garnet shade and suddenly his knee stopped bouncing, his hands lay flat against his thighs.

“Thea…” he began, but caught his tongue and tamed it. “I do not know.”

Penthos leaned forward and rose from his seat, placing the chestnut leaf on the wooden chair, and then shuffling over to the bed before clambering in beside his wife. Hugging her tight, they both let their heads fall onto the pillow, warming each other with their bodies until all sensation was lost and each returned to a vision hidden behind the veil of their minds.

🍂

“Where did you find the leaf, Selene?”

Craning his neck to the side, Penthos gazed at his daughter in the passenger seat. He had rolled onto the curb near the front entrance of the elementary school, but still firmly gripped the wheel, as though in anticipation and fear. With her puffy cheeks and walnut, mother-esque hair, she gleamed without reflecting.

“The chestnut leaf, Selene,” Penthos repeated, enamoured by the green blades woven into her strands.

“Mama gave it to me!” she answered, and then unlocked the car to climb out. She slammed the door shut and bounced energetically down the walkway. But suddenly she halted, twisted around, brilliantly displayed her teeth and waved before skipping towards an older woman with a long navy skirt. The woman glanced over to the car and her posture stiffened as she wrapped a hand around Selene’s back and led her onwards.

Penthos’ expression darkened—he leaned forward and clenched his teeth together, ganshing them against each other. Selene vanished inside the building; quite naturally, Penthos, moved his gaze to the fenced in playground to the right and counted down until Selene burst through the doors and sprinted out, jumping up and climbing to reach the slide. She giggled as she slid down after her friends—with arms raised and spirits high she descended, only to run circular and slide again. His eyes sank inwards, creating an umbrated outline of his ghastly features. With mouth agape he stared at the children in the yard jumping, sprinting, giggling.

“How can it be…?” he spoke softly. And then he noticed a small object shoot up into the heavens, gather the streams of light that hailed unto it, and float down gingerly, almost completely unnoticed. He alone had noticed; he alone had perceived this object. And once the two dimensional shape grafted itself into the dirt, his hands exploded from the steering wheel as though electrocuted and he flung himself from the Mercedes-Benz S-class. The teachers in the playground huddled close together as Penthos stumbled over to the fence, muttering:

“No, no, no…chestnut…the chestnut.”

Drunk-like, he flung himself against the fence and rattled the bars, frantically pointing at the chestnut leaf that had tumbled so surrendering to the earth.

“Sir? Sir!” the navy skirted woman yelled, furrowing her eyebrows in firm disapproval. “We need you to leave.”

“But the chestnut leaf! It has fallen, someone must pick it up!”

Selene peered through the playhouse with a dismal and embarrassed look. For a moment she froze, but then she turned away and giggled again with her friends. The teachers huddled closer, as though protecting themselves from some evil spirit.

“Let the children play!” the woman called out, shooing him away with a gnarled hand. Exasperated, Penthos pressed out air and slapped his palms against the fence in indignation. They were conspiring against him, he thought, all of humanity was conspiring to kill him.

“It’s much more than just a chestnut leaf,” muttered Penthos, but sulked back to the Mercedes. He shut the door and wrung the neck of the key to ignite the engine, producing a calm rumble before he turned off the curb and down the road away from the school.

🍂

How can one keep breathing with the weight of a Life upon the shoulders and the heart? If the Soul itself already weighs 0.2 pounds, how burdensome must the sum of an entire Life prove to be? When one, with clear intentions and a crystal head, a murder stark commits, then the weight—the burden—is just like air and much easier to carry. Yet, when a mishap occurs, and the Soul flees from the human body—and he dies!—the weight is unbearably hefty and as encompassing as the Universe. How can one survive this weight?

Such weight, such powerfully evident magnificence may be found in the natural world. Staring out of the Mercedes windshield and watching the vast landscapes unfold before, blaze past, and then lie still and forgotten behind him, a mighty hand hovered perpetually near him. Penthos sensed a rising bubble within his chest until it burst from his throat in a paroxysm of paranoia and anxiety. The warm air whipped in through the open window, rubbing through his hair and enveloping his body in a vigorously choking spirit that produced goosebumps on his skin. There lay an inherent beauty in the sudden loss of control in the most horrific yet transcended moment. Penthos sped across the road, his conscience drifting off into a vision, his sight fading until only gleaning the interior landscape of his mind. A glamour and elegance surpassing anything else was birthed from the depths of time, and then Penthos snapped into reality, gripping the steering wheel tightly. He ripped his arms sideways and the Mercedes jerked, skidding across the road before springing upwards, the wheels trying to catch the puffy clouds, but missing quite pathetically. Brilliant proved the panorama of glass that obscured his vision when the translucent material lifted its hands to play its own thrilling song.

Thirty-five percent of those in accidents lose their life in rollovers and sixty-five percent experience the adrenaline rush as they exit their car and realise that a deep longing inside themselves urges them to touch the clouds again. Penthos never felt the blood dripping from his hands, but his eyes scintillated in a strange desire as he beheld the crimson stains. He realised that no matter how much he denied himself, he envied those who played the strings of glass and listened to the sound of death.

No matter how much he denied himself, he sought to touch the clouds.

🍂

Horns blared all around him as he tried to scramble from the Mercedes-Benz, squeezing through the shattered glass, and tearing at his clothes to come loose. He whipped his head in every direction and then giggled, scuttling off the street, down a slope, and into the woods. Both dark and light orange, butterscotch, and fainted green leaves were scattered about the floor, only thickening the further he sprinted. Soon after he reached a considerable distance away from the road, Penthos stumbled and then crumpled to the ground, burying his face into the dirt.

“Worth nothing…” he muttered, the musty earth clinging to his lips. And then, as though possessed by mother nature, he rose, appearing pale, emotionless, and dead. He reeled and staggered about himself, his eyes searching for one thing, one tree that would bear that which he sought after. After several minutes, he paused near a large chestnut tree, noticing its firm, umber trunk and wide, symmetrical crown. Pressing his chest against the trunk, he clambered up only about a metre from the ground and stretched his arm upwards toward a low-hanging branch. He grasped for the leaves and fell backwards, ripping the leaves from their stems and falling with a shout to the ground. Brushing himself off, he lifted himself from the ocean of colour and placed two chestnut leaves into the pocket of his pants. With a paroxysm of adrenaline, he shuddered, swung his head about himself thrice, and then willed his feet to fly.

🍂

With the two chestnut leaves in his pocket, Penthos sprung from tree to tree, ducking under branches, stepping over roots, until he reached the familiar, decrepit, off-white walls of his house. He peered through the grimy window, but could see nothing but darkness and shades hovering about; thus he stepped around and motioned for the front door, placing his palm on the broken handle before pressing himself quickly inside.

Once his feet kissed the wooden planks, he moved elegantly between the umbras and eccentric streams of light bouncing in every direction—gracefully he danced through the hall and into the bedroom, his movements becoming much more faint and unnoticeable, his arms flying in legato to inch himself onward. Thea’s figure lay hidden beneath the sheets, but the linen itself motioned up and down, feigning butterfly wings. A breath escaped between her longing lips and her bosom rose and fell as though at the mercy and whims of her dreams. Her walnut hair lay sprawled out upon the alabaster landscape of her pillow and soft, delicate hands curled and grasped at the silky fabric. So gentle she appeared! So frail amidst the black of night! Her eyelids fluttered, but the vision was her own—though her body wrestled to escape, only she could witness the intensity of that tumultuous river of imagination.

He blinked, and then wrestled with his pocket to produce just one chestnut leaf. Stalking over to the nightstand, Penthos lowered his arm until the back of his hand touched the wooden table; then he slid off the leaf and watched it gently tumble onto the surface and exhale in relief. He blinked again, a sensation aiming close at love tearing at his chest as he beheld his wife, but he wrenched himself away and walked briskly back outside.

Beneath the cover of the trees, Penthos retrieved the second chestnut leaf from his pants pocket and raised his arm to inspect the veins and blades. A crimson drop manifested itself on his forefinger and, lame by confusion, he watched in horror as the droplet curved down his finger and pressed down into the leaf. The blood stained the tattered chartreuse green; his eyes widened and his mouth stood agape, the blood from his countenance draining completely as though the single droplet had sucked every resource from his body.

Burying his face into his dusty hands, he crumpled together on the ground and wept. His entire body shivered intensely, drowning in sorrow and despair as his eyes liquidated and washed onto the grimy earth, rendering him crippled and blind. The clothes draped around the stench of his skin soaked in the tears with fervour, turning clammy and cold before attaching to his body and rinsing the smell. No moon illuminated the eerie panorama; the only light entering the space came from the glistening hatred in the eyes of a thousand shadows twisting around the empty atmosphere filled with pain.

“God...”

Water dripped down his cheeks and bathed the frown on his contorted expression in a ritual of despair. No conceptual reason existed for his tears, but he felt the moon lift them up in a wave that washed across his skin and drop the liquid into his quivering hands. His ribs felt as though they might expand and tear apart, molecule by molecule, until the prison bars of his soul remained entirely evaporated to allow the darkness within him to escape.

“God...”

His voice echoed through trees, bouncing off the bark until the shadows caught the word and crushed them in their palms. A snicker rose up from the dirt like a mist spreading upwards, but then was promptly replaced by another outcry from his lips. Penthos stretched the crimson skin beneath his nose and felt his lips begin to crack, allowing his tongue to slip out and lick the metallic blood.

“Hopeless...”

And then the fading light from the shadows was extinguished completely. A silky dusk enveloped me; an obscurity that weighed on his shoulders and soaked through the pores of his body entered his apartment room and gave him comfort. At this very moment he realised that the path of darkness was as illuminated as the path of light.

“But I don’t want to be free.”

🍂

No more children surrounded Selene on the playground, nor were any teachers with long navy skirts to be found. The moon lay adumbrated by a faint pewter line, but darkness streamed down from the heavens with as much intensity as the sun by day. Her knees were torn apart, and she kneeled on a bloody concrete space as though sacrificing to the gods her very self. Selene wept bitterly, her eyes assuming the same crimson hue as her legs, and salted tears raining down as though in judgement. The tattered chestnut leaf lay fragile and broken on her quivering fingers, covered in translucent drops.

🍂

A perfect, unbroken, unsoiled chestnut leaf trembled in Thea’s petite and equally fragile hands. She did not weep, for she envisioned the leaf for what it truly was—and discerned the essence of herself. Trapped within chartreuse veins, there pulsed purpose and life, surrounded by futile blades to produce a dichotomy of worthlessness. And she understood in that moment, holding the perfect chestnut leaf, that she was fashioned and constructed of this one chestnut leaf.

For we are all made of chestnut leaves.