Spring showers had began in the coal rich but person poor town of Jenningsburg, Kentucky. James had finally began to realize his mistakes. He had realized that a reduction in hours meant that the mines were finally dying out. He had realized how justified his family was in leaving him, a failure who was to become a blackened and solid rock that nobody would care to mine for years. Above all, he realized how lonely Jenningsburg, Kentucky was on a spring day with no family or friends.

As with most small Appalachian towns, there was a creek. James had went to splash his face with water; the sweltering heat of the June sun had struck him a stroke. In a state of confusion he fell into the creek. James never bothered to teach himself how to swim; his work only involved being underground, not underwater. Drowning in Jenningsburg, he thought of his spouse. In Columbus, Ohio she was flying and not thinking of him.

As he fell farther and farther down into the water he remembered what it was like to mine and how to hold his breath when he suffered a lack of oxygen or as he used to think humorously, a lack of hope. Falling safely thousands of feet, he ended up in a pile of leaves. Looking around he noticed he was lost again. Was that the second or third time today? He had lost his family, he had lost his mind and fell into a creek, and now here he was in autumn, lost in a forest. Choosing the only logical path, he followed the fallen orange leaves on the ground. An orange dead road.

James made a foolish mistake on his trek out of the forest. He had lost track of the orange leaves in the snow. He stopped looking for them as desperately as he did before. No longer did he crawl and yearn for them. Maybe he was too distracted by the idea of finally finding his way out of something. The climax of his life would be walking out of the forest. A blizzard arrived, and James quickly sublimed into vapor.

So the cycle started again. The spring showers began in the coal rich but person poor town of Jenningsburg, Kentucky.