Fall Again (313 hits)
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Submitted by EhyehAsherEhyeh (View user info) at 2006-09-29 12:07:43 EDT
Fall again.
That's a declarative sentence there, not an imperative. As in, "It's Fall again," and not "You fall down one more time." I was going to say "Autumn again," but I hate cheesy tricks like unnecessary alliteration. Or so I say slyly to some simpletons.
But it really is Fall again. My Summer has passed, my sun is farther away in the sky—colder, more distant. He isn't vigorously perched over my shoulder all day, simultaneously drying and causing my sweat. The breeze has switched direction from offshore to parallel with the coastline, and it feels cool. The sauna stifle is gone from it, and has been replaced with promises of snapping cold in the near future.
I hate it. I know that Autumn is the time for reflection, and pining for old flames. You're supposed to go on long, windy walks and marvel at the turning of leaves. Everyone seems pensive and rather content, with a sort of romantic, faraway look in their eye. There's Halloween and Thanksgiving, and I say screw all that.
Sure, it's a lot easier now to go riding my bike for a few dozen miles. I don't have to worry about heatstroke. Or sunburn (as much). I can finally wear those expensive jeans I bought on sale last Spring without soaking them in buckets of perspiration. (No matter how expensive or classy your clothes may look, any effect toward the positive is exponentially diminished by the increasing size of your sweat stains.) But it's the mood of Fall that pisses me off.
I hate to pine for old flames. It's exactly this romantic feeling at this time of year which sends me out in search of The Next Great Woman. We meet, make incredible memories in the cooling breezes. Our growing feelings blossom as the trees begin to prepare for winter's death, our bodies are warmed by each other as the cold snaps its brittle fingers at us. The world is magic and romance and those long, windy walks I told you about. And then around the middle of December, The Fight. Finally the cold seeps in, and we shiver. There is chilly silence for two weeks or so, fumbled and halfhearted attempts are made to rekindle the burnt-out log in the fireplace; sometimes there's just enough warmth to be worth holding on to. We wait for Spring to thaw the world out again. Eventually it will die, quick and bloody or slowly.
But that Fall? Oh, we'll always have the Autumn, won't we baby? Every time I feel that soft whisper of breeze across my cheek I think of you... And her, and her...
This year I'm thinking mostly about the top two, the two who just maybe could have been something. Separately, of course. I'm no bigamist. First there was the older woman (though there were only two years separating us, the difference between a 19-year-old boy and a woman of 21 is a vast one.) She was free and fun, sharp as a tack and sensible as a librarian, and very giving of her sex. She appealed to the young man who had just moved out on his own, who was still a child but rapidly learning to move forward. There were Marijuana Mondays where we'd sit in her tiny dorm room and watch two straight hours of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?". This was always followed or preceded by vigorous copulation and a long walk, she always in that purple fleece. God, she loved purple. She even smelled purple. There was enchantment sitting there on that bench by the water, red-eyed and in love. But Winter came, as that cold son of a bitch always does.
Years later I met the girl who wore a black satin ribbon around her neck. She also had them tied to her bedposts. She wrote, and philosophized, and listened to music that could do things to your mind. She was ethereal, a tigress, she only came out at night. There was a two hour drive between us, so our visits were intense. Full of words. No sleep. During sex she was a gymnast on the bars or a dancer onstage or a rodeo rider on a bull. Our sex moved furniture and disobeyed the laws of gravity. Talking to her was talking to a mirror of my soul. And then one morning there was frost on the ground. I froze.
This one I actually sent away. I saw the telltale signs, and decided to put this horse down before it really started to suffer. I didn't call her for weeks, though we had a trip planned. Finally I talked to her—told her that I wouldn't see her any more. That I couldn't respect her after the things we had done together. She was a joke among the guys at work. I told her that when I met her, I was just trying to see how quickly I could get drunk, stoned, and laid for free in a city I'd never visited, and you even bought me dinner, didn't you babe?
Winter's a motherfucker, ain't he? Ice cold. To the veins.
And so I love the Summer. All toil and exhaustion, all sweat and sun. There's freedom from sappy romance and sweet melancholy. No windy walks, leaves turning, purple fleece jackets. In the sun's heat, you can't believe that Winter could ever be coming. There's no chill at the bone or ice in the veins.
But for now I've got time to look forward to, months of introspection and remembering. Songs will come on the radio which I will have to switch off, or I'll spend the rest of the day thinking about smiles and warmth and soft breezes. I'll sit on benches by myself, and pretend to be happy, and sleep alone.
This year I think I'll keep to myself, and not pull another wonderful young woman into my pattern. I'll survive the Winter on my own. I have plenty of blankets to keep me warm, and plenty of things to keep me occupied, and plenty of time to think about her.
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Submitted by homer42 (user info) at 2006-11-16 15:45:11 EST (#)
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Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2006-09-29 13:35:21 EDT (#)
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Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2006-09-29 12:23:05 EDT (#)
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Submitted by Nancypants (user info) at 2006-09-29 12:12:39 EDT (#)
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Fall again.
That's a declarative sentence there, not an imperative.
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Actually, it's none other than a sentence fragment. No verb = no sentence.