I stared outside my office window, ignoring the pile of paperwork on my desk, but focusing on the shifting colors of the leaves outside.
Leaves.
They mean so much to some, and so little to others. The mind of a landscaper sees them as nuisance, but a benefit as well. A poet sees them as a universe of simplistic meanings and metaphors, ranging from death to love.
As a soldier, having seen so many battles, and killing so many people, you would think I would see the former....; But instead I see the later.
If Maes could see me now, I know he'd go spinning off about how I should find a nice girl and get married, but I can't. Not now. Not with the blood of so many people on my hands; Many of them killed because of orders that were irrational that I still chose to follow. I have no regrets. I live with the burden of my mistakes, and fix as much as I can as I go along.
So after all that, why, of all things, do I see love in these leaves? They're just plants. Part of atowering scheme, immense beyond their wildest dreams.
What the hell am I saying? They're plants, they don't have dreams!! Let alone a mind!
They have very basic functions. To bud, to unfold, to bloom, to wither, to die, and to be raked up and thrown away and forgotten; Lost in the multitude that succeed it and share its death and burial. That's it. Nothing sentimental about it.
....Wait....
That's our function too, isn't it? The function of a human? To be born, to grow, to reach our prime, age, and die? And just like the leaves, we will soon be forgotten by everyone; Succeeded by those who have outdone us and overshadowed our memory.
But......What happens to a leave when it's plucked, or blown off its branches?
What happens to us when we put ourselves in the hands of someone else?
Well.....In the leaf's case, more often then not they are soon no longer so fascinating to the one that plucked them. Afterwards, they are soon shredded to pieces or trampled underfoot to rot slowly in it's loneliness with so many others; After all, misery loves company.
But...Sometimes in those rare cases, a leaf is saved, treasured, and protected from harm until it eventually cracks with old age. But even when it is lost, the pieces are saved and the memory is never forgotten....
Colonel Roy Mustang gazed out the window with a newfound fondness for the autumn foliage, and was thankful that he was one of those rare cases.