The Fall of Autumn

By Tristan MacKinlay

The lost boy sleeps peacefully under a blanket of autumn leaves. The search party’s cries do not wake him, nor do the searchers see him, though they pass within four feet of where he sleeps. The maple tree, which covered the sleeping boy with leaves to protect him from the cold, has inadvertently hidden him from his would-be rescuers. The maple wishes it could call out to the searchers, or wake the boy, but, being a tree, it can do nothing to repair its mistake.
The boy awakens hours later, in darkness, to falling snow, and the distant howling of wolves.