Today Is The First Day of Autumn
Today is the first day of Autumn, Jessica. You told me Autumn was your favourite season which I always thought was rather pretentious. You said the colours were so beautiful that they made you want to cry or dance or both. All I ever saw were shades of brown. Brown and yellows; the colours of excrement. Then the Autumn rain would plaster the leaves to the pavement in a washed-out wallpaper by a decorator no one hired. You called me a pessimist. I called you foolish.
Now, I’m forced to make my way across this wallpaper. It’s torn and ugly. Where are the purples and reds you promised? My hands are in my pockets to escape from the chill and I can see my breath twirl out in front of me in gentle wisps. No man should have to see his own breath. Gases should not be seen. The ones that are, are often fatal.
Today is the day I visit you. Wednesday afternoon for half an hour every week. That is all. I would spend more time with you, but I am a busy man. Once work finishes, I exchange smiles and goodbyes then return to my comforting silence. Rain is already making its way down the gutter and down my neck. Invasive and cold, like you were.
I did love you. Some part of me always will. Despite your choices and selfishness there was something that drew people in. The world was your web and you the spider ready to feast on whatever got caught. We argued about that too much. Perhaps I was harsh, I’ve been told before I can get like that when I’m stressed. I stand by my statements. Watching you speak to other men like I was no one to you broke me inside. It was like you wanted to hear the shatter. The more I got to know you the more I knew this was true. You lapped up the pain like a dog to water, letting the shards fall from your lips. So why did I fall for you like so many others did?
One by one I watched them fall at your feet, begging for your love. A week would pass, and they’d return flaccid. Hollow shells of the men they started off as. Not once did I see you show a shred of remorse for the pain you caused. They were my friends, my colleagues, strangers. They didn’t deserve what you left them with. They all deserved justice.
Obsession is a strong word. It is the only one that describes what came next. Both of us stood in the Autumn rain sharing an umbrella. Sharing office stories was only of interest to me when it was you talking. I offered you my umbrella for your walk home. You said you didn’t mind the rain, it meant that Autumn was here. Autumn was your favourite season you said with a smile. Each tooth was carved from ivory and chiselled by the finest sculptor. Your car was red like the leaves you claimed to love so much. I have yet to see nature produce such artificial colours. You insisted she would.
Here you are. We never used to meet here but you showed me this spot on so many occasions I knew it must hold some significance to you. Romance was always something I prided myself on and this incidence was no different. Knowing how important this spot was to you, I made sure we would meet here in future. I did so for you.
The next time we went for a cigarette I called to you and propped up my umbrella for us both to share again. Your smile had unfamiliarity written across them and I felt my heart wretch. Jessica, I named you, my voice should have told you who I was. Eyes glossed over, you nodded and stepped back inside. It was then I realised you didn’t even know my name.
***
It hadn’t snowed in two years. Our Winters are biting and crisp but poised in their own right. They don’t bother with the arrogance of snow. Until you and I met. Your posture changed when the leaves became slathered in the white frost. Now when you stared out the office window there was a slouch in your shoulders and a sigh on your lips. What was it about Autumn that fascinated you so? In all the time I’ve known you I have yet to answer that question. I doubt I ever will.
Getting to you today proved difficult. The buses aren’t running properly, and sleet kept testing my footing on the walk. But I wouldn’t miss seeing you. Not for the world. Even though I can’t see you the way I’d want to, knowing you’re there is enough. Perhaps you know I’m here. Perhaps you know of my routine to come and see you every week. Perhaps I am not as subtle as I proclaim to be. Maybe it would be better for you to know these things, you might finally start to recognise my existence.
It was Winter when he first asked you on a date. You said yes, but I knew you well enough to know you’d much rather have said no. Was it the free meal that tempted you? Social pressure? Loneliness? He of course was convinced he would be your last. Like every other fool. On the date you wore red. If you were the symbolic type, I’d ponder if you were trying to portray lust or danger. Whatever you’d done to your hair to make it form such delicate waves, it was working. As soon as he entered the building, I saw his eyes drink in every inch of you. Once quenched he pushed in your seat for you. You smiled but I caught your eye roll. I knew you wouldn’t be impressed with such chivalry. Too medieval. You wanted real, genuine personality. If you just gave me a chance, I would prove to you I am everything you need.
You are still so beautiful even now. Despite everything that’s happened to you, you’re still the blossom of this earth. I can feel it as I look at you. It sucks the oxygen out my lungs and spits out coal in its place. You make me feel heavy but light. Like a rock attached to a hundred balloons.
I wish I could hold you, touch you, feel your breath on my neck. When your hand grazed mine every synapse in my body fired. Electricity flowed through me. I felt like a paralysed man set free. It was so fleeting. A moment that will stay with me forever.
Here you are blanketed in another one of nature’s duvet. Snow two years in a row. Unheard of. There was something about you even nature couldn’t contain. Today you are frosted over with shards of ice on the corners of your grave. They are thin but holding firm. Ice droplets have frozen to the tree branches that surround us both. They weigh down the branch, so its leaves tickle my cheek as I watch you.
Flowers are hard to come by this season. I’m sure you would understand. The florist near your house is always open though. I’m on a first name basis with the owner. She expects me every Wednesday afternoon to get you flowers. Two women dependants on my visits. She recommended the wild lilies this week, though they weren’t blooming here they clearly were somewhere. I set the red flower down by your name. It is almost the same shade of red of the dress you wore that night. Too much of an orange tone perhaps. I’d like to think you’d appreciate the red but would frown upon something as predictable as red roses. I wish I’d known you long enough to ask your favourite flower. Maybe then you’d appreciate these visits even more.
***
Finally, the staggered signs of winter have dispersed, and I am seeing the first rays of sunshine. She was well missed. Of course, where we are, we have to accept scattering showers at least once a day but it’s worth it to be completely rid of those Autumn leaves. They have all decomposed. The streets are clear.
People at work still talk about you. You are a ghost but somehow still legendary. One of them will find a Tupperware of yours and get all teary eyed. I’ve tried to comfort them on occasion. They tell me I didn’t know you and wouldn’t understand. I stifle a laugh because you and I both know I could not understand more. I am the one who misses you most. Life was cut too short for you. We have both been punished for sins we did not take ourselves for being capable of. You found your escape and left me here to suffer. You always were the selfish type.
He gets the biggest reaction. When he came back to work the bags around his eyes could have carried a week’s holiday in them. Hollow cheekbones framed his face and wrinkle lines he’d never shown signs of having suddenly peaked. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. His clothes smelt like cigarettes and cheap rum. He’d only been dating you for a few months. He hadn’t seen you the way I had. At your most vulnerable points, moments you never would have shown another soul. Etched into my brain were those moments we shared. That was when you finally knew who I was.
You should know he’s moved on. Once the pity party dispersed and he wasn’t being offered time off or casseroles he was back on the hunt. Ironically, your replacement appears to be his next target. I hope you can forgive him. Perhaps this is how the simple-minded deal with grief. Not like us. We are far more complex. His now full cheekbones glistened with the glow of a good night’s sleep and a salad for lunch. Today he was wearing his strongest cologne. Today was the day he was going to ask her on a date.
He walked past me to go over and talk to you that day. My gag reflex was suppressed just in time as his seductive scent penetrated the entire office. It wasn’t just the smell of the perfume I despised. It was the smell of his walk. Arms swinging carelessly, mint on his breath and a skip in his step. Before he’d even asked you the question he had won. A rejection would have simply become a motivation to smell stronger next time. Not that you rejected him. Of course, you didn’t.
These thoughts mean I am cross when I see you today. Being so wrapped up in my feelings for you means I struggle to process the negative. I breathe deeply and regain my composure. We are not alone on this meeting.
There is someone new next to you. I don’t know her, but I do not want my first impression to be that of anger. Introductions are unnecessary. I am sane enough to not talk to an inanimate grave with no capacity to respond.
Maybe you knew her. Maybe you two were close and fate needed you to be buried close together so you could find each other in whatever came next. If you are here, watching me lay a tulip at your feet I wonder if you’ll tell her about me. If you will brag about how lucky you are to have such a committed and caring partner.
I did ask you how the date went in the end. I couldn’t help myself, I just had to know. Despite all the signs. All the indications of how unhappy you were and all the evidence I had seen, you told me you liked him. You had seen him multiple times and were close to making it more with him. I truly hated you then. You knew with those words you’d splinter every fibre in me and crucify all I’d worked so hard to build. The least you could have done was let me down easy. But you were as cold as the snow. It fell around us that day, not on us. Nature knew this conversation needed complete solitude. You couldn’t even rely on her.
I leave you early today. With a new visitor here, I feel uncomfortable sitting with you both. It’s like a family meeting, a stage we never made it to. I felt on edge, watched, seen. It was the same way I felt when our eyes met the first time but with heat behind the gaze. Not the soft breeze I felt in you. One by one the flowers are crusting over and decaying until they crumble to nothingness. I cannot wait for the same fate.
***
He was there again today, stealing the spotlight at the scene of the arrest. Of course, his eyes filled up as they so often had. I was sure he would somehow obtain another holiday or lasagne out of this. He had a way with people the same way you did. I could see through both of you. What I saw on the other side of you was magic. His other side was only darkness.
They say the woman buried next to you was your sister. The circumstances of your death had bothered her for months and she had spent months investigating the man you chose. She had followed him home, to work, to the gym, wherever she could. On one of those trips she got side-tracked. She was as observant as you. Someone else was doing the same; following this man. Being fixated on bringing her sister justice she had traced this common denominator in the same way. To work, home and wherever else he went. Obsessions like that can be fatal.
Biology had always been my weakest subject. I’d often been referred to as a bright child who just needed to apply himself. Lesson upon lesson on the same cells or neurons, or whatever the hell it was, had just never been worth my time. Looking back, perhaps it would have been of some benefit.
Summer smells of sweat. The body odour of every man, woman and child spills into the air and overwhelms everything else. Who can stop to smell the roses when that smell is so overpowering? Even his cologne couldn’t completely deafen the scent. I have since learnt there is only one smell that can overcome this. Rotting flesh.
You see if I’d paid attention in biology then I may have known more about decomposition. Organic items eventually become one with the earth and regenerate themselves, this I know. What I did not know was these patterns are accelerated by heat. A body buried underground under extreme heat from a summer’s sun will rot much faster than in any other season. I’d also never been taught what the smell of rotting flesh was, though I am sure this was not on any biological curriculum. Apparently, the scent is rather intense. Intense enough to be picked up by scavengers, dogs and eventually humans.
And this is why I can no longer see you. The police arrived at work this morning and cuffed me under the hot summer sun. Everyone gasped and clutched their pearls or grabbed the nearest hand they could find. One even turned to another to ask who I was.
I had only wanted to talk to you and confess the feelings that had been bubbling below my skin. My hope was that you’d confess the same. From everything I’d seen you weren’t happy with him. I know this. I know you. Even my mention of Autumn couldn’t seem to calm you down. One thing I never knew about you was how loud you could scream. After the rejection you put on me, I then had to face you attacking me. Biting, clawing, screaming. You were always the selfish kind. Nonetheless, I still loved you. You loved me too, even if you couldn’t see it. I panicked Jessica. I never meant it.
Autumn will never come for me again. I will be caged in a place with no change in season. Locked away alone with my thoughts will not be that bad, you see, that’s where you are. The real you. The you that loves me. The you that watched me lay flowers for you every week. The you that watched me carve a gravestone with my bare hands. I’m sorry I am what I am. You were my red Autumn leaf, an incomplete promise.
At least I never have to witness the excrement coloured pavement again.
Written by Alice Foxall
Hi I'm Alice, I'm a 21 year old biomedical science student living in London. I have a passion for science, breaking stigmas and maybe a cheeky story every once in a while. I love hash brown fries and if you haven't tried them you're missing out.