October

Fall: the plants bulge with ripeness, sagging under their own weight, ready to die. The sunlight is diffuse and cold but also comforting, like the light from a fish tank when you're the only one left awake in the house; it has all the clemency that is missing from the merciless sunlight in mid spring. The ground sags and crumbles under each step, the moist remains of decaying leaves, spilled apple cider, acorns that didn't take root. The air is the breath of ghosts, the air drifts out of brick fireplaces and crawls out from underneath porches, unfurls out of old oak chests and billows out of the creases of long-unused wool blankets. The air is what the world will feel like when it finally stops running, chill and calm.

It rained yesterday, water showering down from the grey sky that was not mournful but mischievous. It splashed against the window and trickled down in little rivers, and pattered across the roof like all the steps ever taken there by cats that once were, like fingertips fluttering across a piano's keys at midnight. Such a relief after the onslaught of summer, which made a very great campaign this year indeed. Summer conquered all that came before its wrathful eyes, and hoarded its spoils in a cave by the seaside. It settled there to drink and eat continuously, never sated, and thus engorged its body with the stolen goods. Now it lies prone and rotting, overthrown by its own greed. The rain crept over to laugh at it softly.

Now night comes on like a festival, decking the sky with its banners of stars, making streamers out of the rustling leaves and tent flaps out of the shimmering horizon. Crickets spring about as jesters with fiddles, and every uncertain step in darkness is a roaring carnival ride. The moon is the bard of the world and it knows every song that ever was, because they were all written for the moon. Cats creep through the darkness, preying on unsuspecting revellers who don't keep a close enough eye on their wallets. The cotton candy air is sweet and pulls off in soft chunks, then melts on your tongue. Sometimes if you stand outside long enough until the wee hours of the morning, you can almost see the workmen come along and take it all down.