The crisp autumn air hugs my lungs in between drags. Wispy billows of smoke fill the air like chiffon. My mother would have a fit if she knew I smoked. “Unseemly” was the word she used to describe such things. So, like most of my interests I kept them to myself. It was only on my solitary strolls from place to place was I able to be unbriddled.

Piles of leaves lined the sidewalk path in the park behind my house. There is something primal about disrupting a leave pile, the ying and yang of the act itself. A need for chaos. Standing chin up, tip-toes tipped I leaped unbridled into the tidy pile. I landed with a hollow thud as the leaves flew sky ward in all directions.

Easing of the ground I see what I looks like a hand, but I assure myself that this is some kind of halucination. I must have hit my head when I dove into the pile or I am having a spell of latent schizophrenia. Closing my eyes and opening them only confirms my misdiagnosis.

The hand is surely female, manicured and missing the ring finger.