"... you could..." she didn't wait for me to finish to grab my hand from where it lay - a foot or so from hers - and grip it firmly. Firmly, for someone with an evidently silky-smooth palm. And so, I decided to let her whimper till she wanted to. After all, I had nothing else to do and even if I did, nothing else would've been a better thing to do.

A gentle breeze blew, carrying with it the one or two stray leaves that were left unswept that morning. The leaves seemed to resist being dragged along, going by the faint scraping sound they made as they were dragged along the tar road. This is the tropics and there is no real autumn. No one cares to enjoy the haunting beauty of fallen leaves. They are either swept away religiously or discarded without consideration. What makes it worse is there are still green leaves on trees - leaves that won't fall at all, will continue to live and torment the ones being swept away. Leaves that will stay and weep in the memory of departed leaves. Maybe that's why they don't have a mind of their own - no pangs of separation to worry about.

I wanted to pull her close and hold her in half an embrace. Perhaps that would comfort her. She might even bury her head in my chest and weep a little more and with lot less care, I thought. What if she doesn't like it and pulls away? What if she has none to cry with afterwards? I let out a sigh.

It must have been a fairly long and loud one, given she drew her hand away and was already staring quizzingly by the time I was done sighing.

"Are you alright?"

"You tell me," she said," You were the one that sighed aloud. Am I being..."

"No, no," I cut her short. "I was watching the leaves being swept away by the wind," I said.

"I don't know why they call it a leaf," she said,"Might as well have called it leave. I mean there are many such words that spell and sound the same but mean entirely different things." Something was amiss.

"Maybe because they didn't want to tell the leaves the obvious."

"Obvious?"

"Yeah. Come fall, they leave."

"But this is the tropics. And they all don't leave," she said.

"Yeah. Makes it worse, doesn't it? All of them don't go. Imagine one wanting to call out to the other. If it cries 'leave, leave' what would the other think? 'Leaf, leaf,' sounds better, don't you think?"

"Leave?"

"Yeah. No. Leaf."

A heavy silence hung for what seemed like eternity. The wind ceased and the air became still. She held my hand again. I wanted to pull her closer again, but refrained, again.

When someone comes home, tired or sad craving for rest, and they lean against the wall or simply sit with their head rested against the threshold, home doesn't cave in on them, does it? It remains - home.