Scrivenings of the King-Beyond-The-Wall

Space Adventures #11

Fall is my favorite time of year. The air gets a little crisper, the temperature drops a bit, and the leaves on the trees all change color. And I mean really change color, because they respond to the moods of the people around them. It wasn’t uncommon for mediators and court officers to hold official proceedings outside; the foliage turning green to indicate dishonesty was a surprisingly effective way of doing their jobs.

One of my favorite things to do in the Fall was go crowd watch. As a group of people walked through an area with a lot of foliage, the leaves would turn into undulating waves of rippling, changing color as different people in different moods would walk by them and affect their color. It was truly a sight to behold.

I myself was planning on using the color-changing trees to get the answer to a very important question. I was hoping to propose to my girlfriend and wanted to see if I could get any indication of whether she would be interested in marrying me. Was it cheating? Maybe a little bit, but we had been having a lot of disagreements and arguments lately, and I just wanted to be sure that we were on the same page before I spent that kind of money on a ring.

Imagine my surprise when I first brought up the idea of getting married during a nice autumn walk and the leaves around her turned red.

“Are you serious?” I asked, dumbfounded. “You’re red about the idea of spending the rest of your life with me? Am I that bad?”

“Well why do you even want to marry me?” she asked. “We fight all the time and can never agree on anything. I swear, the only thing we have in common is amazing sex skills!”

Blue leaves around me. Her eyes went wide.

“OMG, you think that’s true!”

“Now hold on a minute,” I stammered. “I think what the blue leaves meant was that they agree that we’re really great at sex. It’s an objective fact!”

“Well if we have so much in common, I’m sure you won’t mind answering one more question,” she asked, her eyebrow arching.

“Of course...” I said meekly. This was going south quickly.

“Do you like spending time with my family?”

Her eyes went wide again, even bigger than before. She stormed off and I reluctantly looked at the leaves behind me.

Oh God, why did they have to turn purple of all the colors?

As I chased after her, I lamented my choice to take her out to the color changing leaves to get a better sense of her mood. I had neglected to factor in the part about it revealing my own emotions as well, and if I were being honest with myself, I was really having doubts. I guess the trees and their purple leaves knew that even before I really admitted it to myself.



______________________________

(503 words)


Prompt: In this world, the leaves on trees change color every fall based on the changing mood of the people.