It’s autumn and the wind blows with fury. Atop a hill where a single tree stands.
A child sees it out of his window. He sees the wind showing no mercy to the leaves.
And he tells his mother that the leaves are losing the battle. That they are being massacred.
The leaves are at a disadvantage. And the child cannot allow it. That is why he picks his tiny tin soldiers.
The child runs uphill. With all his tiny tin soldiers in hand, he runs towards the battlefield. With the wind slapping him in the face. Trying to make him go back.
But the child perseveres. And he arrives to the tree. Without the wind blowing him far away like it does with the leaves it tears off the tree.
The ground is covered with corpses. Fallen leaves that have died trying to defend their tree.
The child promises to avenge the fallen. He climbs the tree. While the wind blows trying to scare him. In vain. Because he has made a promise.
The child spreads the troops. One by one he puts the tiny tin soldiers on the branches of the tree. So as to help the leaves in their battle against the enormous wind.
It’s a battle without mercy. Tiny soldiers and leaves fight arm in arm.
But the wind is very strong. So strong that not even the tiny tin soldiers can face against it without suffering casualties.
The battle goes on. And the corpses of the tiny tin soldiers add to the fallen leaves at the tree’s feet.
But throwing the tiny tin soldiers is not enough for the wind. And with a well-aimed gust it strikes where it hurts the most. Throwing the child from the tree. As if he were no more than another leaf.
The child ends among the fallen. Another tiny soldier. Another casualty of a lost battle. While the wind keeps blowing among the branches.
His mother finds him by the tree. Broken. Unconscious. She doesn’t see leaves nor tiny soldiers, she doesn’t see a battlefield. Only her son.
Autumn has come to an end. But the child’s confinement to his bed has just begun.
The battle is over. The wind leaves victorious. Leaving behind a heartbroken child and a leafless tree.
And his little brother is the one who honors the fallen. Building in that tree a monument to the courage, to the unrewarded compassion of the child. But that is a tale for winter.