[2] Widely celebrated as the first appearance of Macondo, the fictitious village later made famous in One Hundred Years of Solitude, Leaf Storm is a testing ground for many of the themes and characters later immortalized in said book.

The Father, an aging, half blind man who carries the title of colonel within the village, has made a promise to bury the recently deceased former doctor in spite of the consensus within Macondo that he should be left to rot within the corner house where he had lived in complete social isolation for the past decade.

The daughter, Isabel, is obliged to accompany her father out of respect for traditional values while knowing she and her son will be doomed to face the wrath of her neighbors in Macondo.

As with many of his stories, such as Love in the Time of Cholera and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, García Márquez introduces a dramatic scene to begin his narrative and then moves backward, rehashing the past that will lead up to the ultimate conclusion.

In addition to the themes of cyclicality and inversion that are bedrocks to the narrative fluidity of One Hundred Years of Solitude; Leaf Storm also demonstrates several other techniques identified with Magical Realism such as manipulation of time and the use of multiple perspectives.