Falling for the Four Leaf Clover

I was stuck on the middle of the hill trying to make up my mind which direction to take. Either way, the grass was greener than I remembered it being for a long time. I looked down by my feet and saw a four-leaf clover. My luck was really going to change. I would pluck it and press it in between the pages of my journal.

I bent down closer and examined just a fraction of a tear on the corner of one of the leaves. That’s okay. It’s still a four-leaf clover. I looked around, just in case someone decided to snatch the only bit of good luck that I had cast my eyes upon in months, maybe even years. I placed my backpack on the ground and looked up at the sky for a moment, it was so blue after weeks and weeks of nothing but wind and rain.

What was I thinking? I took my eyes away from the four-leaf clover. I’ll never find it amongst all of these three-leaf clovers. Then I remembered that it was by my left foot. It was easy to spot once, it would be easy to spot again. I bent down closer to the ground and there it was, standing out, quivering amongst the others with its torn leaf.

I plucked it and held it close to my face. Wait. There are three leaves on it, one has a peculiar bump, an oddity that is not only a deviation from nature, but torn as well. How could I have thought that this was a four-leaf clover when in fact it is deformed, damaged and if anything, a sign of bad luck?

I dropped it onto the ground and decided to go up the hill. My eyes swept the ground as I brushed my bare feet over thousands of dewy three-leaf clovers. I thought that I spotted a four-leaf clover and stopped and leaned closer to the ground. I counted the three leaves and noticed an oddly shaped leaf, but it was not torn.

I’m not falling for that again.