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.