I was sitting on the arm of my couch looking out my window watching the sun bleed out across the horizon when it happened. It was overpowering and swift when it came and it hit me in a way that I had no choice but to sit still at my window. Fall, without warning or explanation or apology had just arrived, and it was my duty to bear witness to it.
That morning it had been summer, with green grass and dreams that had no choice but coming true. Sunlight had wrapped us all up for so long that we had forgotten its golden blanket was there. It was a part of us now; we wore it like a cloak over our shoulders and it tanned our backs and chests. Bare bodies paid homage to this gift of warmth and promise and there were smiles smeared across our red faces. There were eternal days at the pool and epic evenings around a fire pit. It was summer and we were young and invincible and beautiful.
But now, right in front of my face, it was fall. Yellow had crept into the trees and it shimmered and multiplied like gray hairs. The air was heavy with hopes and dreams gone unfulfilled and the wind bit with their bitterness. I was suddenly conscious of the stillness of everything, and of the quiet. The earth’s heartbeat had begun to slow and I could feel it with a firmer ground underfoot. Shots of life and color would come less abundantly but more profoundly in the coming days. The red of the sun dying on the horizon yielded faint promise of an Indian Summer.
The twinkling of city lights flashed me the message that the moment was over. My time on the arm of my couch watching the sun set on summer, like the summer itself, had slipped away, and I felt connected to the weight of the moment. Catherine’s younger brother Stevie had died yesterday. I thought about this as I watched the sun bleed out and heard the earth slow down. I thought about Stevie and Catherine and all the fleeting promises of summer that were setting with the sun. A gust of wind blew in through my window and cold air flooded my apartment and with that fall took root in me.
