The Garden of Resurrection by E. Temple Thurston

Summer and autumn both have come, both have gone. It is nearly two / months since I saw the last leaf fall from the plane tree beneath / which I sit so often in the Park, whose canopy of foliage is the roof / of one of my little theatres. I cannot remember ever having realized / the passing of a season so actually as I did that day when this poor, / dead, shrivelled thing, which once had worn its glossy green, came / fluttering down into the mud. I watched it as it circled and twisted. / It was like the feeble flight of one of those tired butterflies which / have hibernated in some sheltered place until the first treacherous day / of sunshine has brought them forth to buffet and destroy them. It was / so much at the mercy of the faintest wind that blew. As it lay there in / the mud, I looked above me at the blackened branches. It had been the / last leaf to fall. Both summer and autumn had gone. A few minutes later / there passed by one who, unthinkingly, crushed it beneath his foot, and / with that it reverted to the dust once more from which originally it / had come -- into which inevitably it was destined to return.

I remembered then that I got up from my seat and walked slowly from the / Park. As I passed out of the gates and turned towards Piccadilly, they / were beginning to light up in the windows of the clubs. I chose the / opposite pavement, looking up into the different windows as I went by. / Every one of them offered the same picture -- men of ease and leisure, / reading their evening papers over cups of tea. I wondered what would / be their replies if, into each room, I had walked announcing that I / had just seen the last leaf fall from the plane trees in the Park. In / my mind's eye I could see them, one and all, looking at me in disgust / for bringing such news, then burying themselves again in their papers, / goading their minds to forgetfulness by reading the latest report of / whatever sensation the moment had to offer them.