Feuille Tombee -

"No," Auguste would answer. "They are not fallen. They are returned."

And somewhere, in the river or the field or the wind, a million other fallen leaves were already dreaming of spring. Feuille tombee

But Céleste had fallen, too. Not from a tree. From life. Fifteen years ago, in the bedroom upstairs, with the window open so she could hear the linden rustling. Auguste had held her hand as she let go, as she became the thing she had always called him: a leaf, detached, drifting. "No," Auguste would answer

One morning, a single leaf landed on his windowsill. It was not special—brown at the edges, gold at the heart, a small bruise of decay near the stem. But Auguste picked it up and turned it over. On its underside, written in the fine veins, he imagined a message: You are still here. But Céleste had fallen, too

He stepped outside in his slippers. The ground was clean, dark, and final. For the first time, he felt truly alone. No trace of all those years. No trace of Céleste's laughter caught in the branches.

Fallen leaf... but not forgotten.