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And it sets in across the hills and the valleys and seeps into every crevice.
It's like some almighty hand has dipped into the Holi bowls, taken fistfuls of the powdered pigments and strewn them across the landscape haphazardly. Deep crimson to bright orange, licked with the smallest dabs of brown. The scenery changes from lush to vibrant, each color seeping in through the eyes and pushing against the back of the skull so strongly you can almost taste it.
Like the first few particles of a pixie stick hitting the side of your tongue as the rest spreads across and coats the inside of your mouth.
It can be magnificent, seeing the rolling hills of green shift to bright, almost fluorescent colors. Spots of red and orange and yellow coat the landscape and merge and flow with seemingly no pattern at all. So maybe it's not an almighty hand, but that of a child. It pays no heed to the lines, the edges, the patterns thrown together, but it does know what is beautiful and elegant.
Perhaps poetic.
And a few of the leaves begin to fall, shifted along by the wind, being pushed up against the great, gnarled trunks and strewn across the dying grass. They stick out amongst the faded-green-brown and crinkle under every footstep. They act like bubble wrap, if but the eternal type. There's always a soft crackle, no matter how many times it's tread upon.
And should you be fortunate enough to live somewhere with hills, mountains, perhaps a very high bridge, you get that first good look as you reach the crest, and stop or slow for a moment, taking it all in, this freckled landscape. There's a cool breeze out, rustling the leaves, and you can see it spread out from limb to limb in the distance, boughs shivering and shaking in a unified dance against the elements.
And then a week passes.
And a rain comes.
And a front changes.
And you're left cold and shivering, water soaking up your pants legs and seemingly through your skin. Your jacket can't seem to hold out against the sharp edge of the wind and the saltless tears spill out from your eyes, drawing an icy line back to your ears. The leaves underneath your feet no longer crinkle, but make a disgusting, foul squish as you tread along the gray sidewalks.
The limbs stand bare, the colors have all been cleaned from the canvas with a freezing turpentine and lay in the gutters in disheveled, sodden heaps the color of mud and shit.
And the wind picks up again.
No longer is there the delicate rustle of leaves brushing past one another, like singles in bars hoping for that one magical moment of intimacy, but rather replaced with the empty clacking of twigs beating out a despairing march for our feet to keep shuffling to.
All that's left is decay underneath a sky grayer than the sidewalk you travel along. Damp and festering at your footsteps, licking at your heels as you pass.
So the fall can be nice, but there's days when I walk home thinking how oppressive it is, when all that is left in the woods near my apartment or trash scrubs and weeds. When the majestic trees shooting up so far in the air fail to hide the view of the other side, having already been stripped of their covering.
So I'll wake up, and be able to see from my soaked, muddy side of the creek to the other. I'll be able to see the gray spray of water from behind a dirty Escalade as they weave their way through the parking lot on the other side, travelling down row after row of soaked, dirty, leaf covered cars. There won't be any distance between this world of ugly and that one.
But perhaps I'm being cynical.
Perhaps the unforgiving cold
the bare, haunted trees
the leaf caked gutters
the unsmiling, unfeeling faces
the huddled masses standing outside, smoke rising from their covered faces
the pure misery of it all, has some meaning.
But for that, I don't hold out hope.
For me, the ass end of fall is a tribute to decay. An eating away at the year's labor. A failed toast in honor of a year's achievements.
Maybe the snow will come, maybe it won't. Maybe a soft blanket of white will shine the light on a smile or two. Maybe we'll be stuck with the frowns reflected out of sour, muddy pools.
Only time will tell.
My favorite time of year.
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