Jewel scraped her boot through the leaves congregating in the gutter. Her glossy, black heel revealed a cigarette butt and the corner of a Snickers wrapper matted to the cement by summer dirt and fall rain. From the look of it, the trash had claimed this corner long before she had.

Photo courtesy of Jenifer Cabrera via Creationswap.com

At the sound of tires, Jewel’s spine straightened and her hips cocked, but the black sedan sped up. She threw a provocative smile anyways, only to have the tinted windows fling it back.

The rush of wind whipped the leaves around her ankles and mingled a sharp, earthy scent with the car’s exhaust. The smell of the leaves, rich and sun-baked, summoned something deep within Jewel. She felt it knocking on the cellar door of her subconscious, dull and distant. 

For several minutes the street stretched bored and empty in both directions. Jewel bent down and grabbed two leaves, a flaming orange one and a muted red. There it was again—an echo inside of her, like a recurrent dream she couldn’t remember.

Something hid inside those leaves, something Jewel had known and forgotten. It grabbed her by the ribs and squeezed her so tight her lungs seemed to burst a little. Jewel felt air, cold and burning, leaking deep inside of her—down to places that, until today, she didn’t even know existed.