WHY LEAVES CHANGE COLOR
By Setenay Mufti
One beautiful sunlit day, the radiant brown-haired god, Hermes, decided to
practice his archery. Unfortunately, one of his arrows flew off course and into the
woods, where so many trees prevented light from penetrating the thick branches.
At the same time, Artemis, the fair goddess with deep brown hair and piercing green
eyes, had been hunting with her hounds. As Hermes’ arrow soared through the air,
it landed in one of Artemis’ hounds and killed him. The irate Artemis ran towards
Hermes, face red with fury, ready to confront him.
“How dare you shoot so carelessly,” Artemis roared, “I demand that you do
down to Hades and bring back the lost soul of my dear companion as punishment!”
“Absolutely not,” Hermes retorted, slightly offended by Artemis’ cruel words.
“I dare not go down to the Underworld. Hades is sure to refuse and punish me.
Besides, I never meant to kill your dog.”
The two gods argued back and forth until Artemis put her foot down.
“Very well. We may as well settle this by consulting Themis, the goddess of
justice, an impartial goddess. She will decide who should be blamed for this
outcome.”
As a result, the two immortals floated over to the temple of Themis, who sat
on a stool writing a letter. She looked beautiful, with strawberry blonde hair
running down her back in thick curls, and light greenish-blue eyes. The temple
itself, calming light lavender, didn’t look fancy at all, but the comforting, casual hint
eased much of the tension.
“Honorable Themis,” Hermes began. “Artemis and I became engaged in a
quarrel, and we have come to you to set things straight.” Each god told his and then
her story.
“Well,” said Themis. “I have come to the conclusion that both of you have a
right to blame each other. However, we cannot have you arguing for all eternity. So,
we will hold a contest. Whoever creates the biggest and most majestic explosion in
the air will win the contest. If Artemis wins, she has the right to force Hermes to go
to Hades and retrieve the soul of her dog, regardless of what the Lord of the
Underworld says. If Hermes wins, Artemis owes him an apology. The contest will
be held in three days in the clearing, one mile to the east of the temple of Zeus. I
recommend that you begin designing your explosions right away.”
During those long and exhausting days and nights, the two worked
vigorously until both felt satisfied with their creations. When those three tiresome
days finally ran out, they traveled to the clearing, both filled with confidence. They
had to go deep into the green forest to get to the special place where the whole
“battle ground” had been surrounded by trees, around a base spot of earth. The
ground seemed flat, because the tan colored pebbles, scattered everywhere, were
the same exact color as the dusty ground. The trees surrounding it reached
incredible heights. Themis had kindly hinted that it would take quite a lot of
preparation if the explosions were to be strong enough to touch the sky. Artemis
volunteered to go first and set up her explosion. It was beautiful, bursting with
color, and when it died down, the little pieces of color fell on the tops of the trees all
over the world, coloring them red, yellow, brown and green. Artemis stepped back,
pleased with her work.
Hermes’ explosion turned out to cover a much larger amount of space but
less beautiful, and this time the explosion left the branches on the trees entirely
devoid of the colorful leaves Artemis had created. Themis eventually decided that
both explosions looked equally impressive and proposed that his system, which
humans refer to as a result of nature, would continue every year.
As a result, every year Artemis and Hermes compete with explosions,
Artemis coloring the leaves and Hermes making them fall. If you happen to take a
walk in the fall, and notice that the leaves have a bigger range in colors than usual,
you should know that this is a result of Artemis’ explosion. If you then take a walk in
the same place a few months later, you will see that all the pretty leaves have fallen,
exposing the trees’ bare branches, this being the result of the explosion made by
Hermes.