YELLOW LEAF

WHAT IT IS

A sleep-deprived Jared Deakins sat on a red oak log the size of a county road culvert.  Its  bark was getting soft from years of inclement weather and now bright green moss covered much of it. He had spent the night on St. Peter’s trail, looking for escaped teenagers, but saw not a one and now that daylight was overtaking the eastern sky his plan was to return to his cabin and book some serious sack time.

The translucent man had already passed Jared, the duck and horse that followed walked side by side in what could only be described as a waltz pattern. Synchronized strides to the left side of the road, then more strides to the right side of the road, culminating in the duck performing a feet and feather type of pirouette and then it all starting over again. Amused, Jared thought the critters were bored and didn’t pay them much mind until the translucent man abruptly stopped and walked back to where Jared was sitting. He stopped about ten feet from Jared, at the end of the log. Kneeling down he reached into the rotting butt of the tree and pulled out a small yellow leafed plant and placed it on the log before walking away.

Jared opened the door to his cabin, the little bastards had ransacked the place, stole his beer and threw what little food he had in the fridge against the walls. He looked at the small plant in its planter and read the child-like printing on it: From Plot 82. Jared quit work that day, he knew it was coming, he just needed a little push. He stuffed his few worldly possessions in a knapsack, carefully put the plant in a box and went looking for Plot 82.

WHAT IT IS NOT

Leo Barnard’s sight came and went for no apparent reason and today it was leaving like a Tokyo bullet train, but his innate ability to accurately weigh just about anything was still intact and that was what Cathy Jennings needed him for.

While breaking into Tiny’s van, Jennings saw Leo carrying a small yellow leafed plant while aimlessly wandering the roadside ditches looking for abandoned money, abandoned food to eat or any manner of bric-a-brac that could be sold. With Jennings offering up the princely sum of one hundred dollars for Leo’s help, the two quickly devised a plan to remove the four pales of 1,4 Dichloropropene insecticide and replaced it with a less disastrous substance.

Four gallons of thick, fowl smelling bayou water, two handfuls of needles from a bald cypress tree and a spadeful of fine swamp mud were mixed together and substituted for the insecticide. When Tiny returned with Sebastian from the garage he checked his cargo while the mechanic repaired his tire and soon Tiny was airport bound.