Autumn: The Fade

Autumn: The Fade

The dead leaves blow across the tar, keeping low, making bat like shadows in the lamplight. Exhaust plumes drift from the queues of traffic like gun smoke from a hundred shootouts. This was a time for walking after dark, enjoying the cool feeling of the air as the slow slide to winter began. Summer was only a memory; it had joined the memories of distant summers past, sand castles, sunburn and car journeys with the windows wide open. Wasted weather, that was the summer now, days in an office where computer screens outnumbered windows and clocks outnumbered smiling faces.

Will Marseille needed to share this time. He needed a woman on his arm, smiling, her cheeks flushed from the night air. Summer belongs to the blondes, but autumn, autumn is the season of reds and browns. That was it, a brunette by his side, sharing a joke or a story as they strolled to a late dinner and an even later night, perfect. Sadly the autumn nights were spoiling as the summer days had; it seemed he never made the most of anything anymore. In his mind there was a sense, a realisation that the years were following the days over a hidden waterfall. Each year was a great tree toppling into a river, where the days - its leaves and branches - had already fallen.

There she was, the girl with the strange, enchanting walk. Somehow the way she moved made more sense in a skirt, like lyrics put to their melody. Each day she showed him a verse and each night he dreamt of the chorus. He only needed a flicker of courage to reach out to the familiar, yet distant, vision. That was how he had arrived at this point however, never a flicker of courage. Maybe tomorrow….

That night each passing car brought a fleeting dawn through his thinly curtained window. The sound of their tyres was slow waves breaking on a pebble beach; Schhhch, Schhhch. Sleep would not come, regret manifested as insomnia, years of regret compounded by yet another moment of weakness. Added to this was the nagging guilt stemming from the knowledge that there were people in the world with far more serious problems than he. This was a life issue, not a life or death issue. Definitely tomorrow…

In his dreams ships sank, forests burned, cities crumbled, angels lay raped and bleeding, clouds chased each other across a sunset sky and his one true love died a hundred years before he was born. Later, a different dream, one where his love was not dead, one filled with a single, Beautiful, Golden Fuck. When Will awoke he remembered nothing of his minds night wanderings (or wonderings), and was aware only of the conflicted feelings they had left him with.

Work inevitably filled the daylight hours of the next day. Dust gathered under the desks, the crushed and powdered spirit of failed escapologists. Will gazed at numbers that may have meant something to someone else, but not to him. He knew what they represented, what they were supposed to show but they bore no significance to him personally.

The next night as he numbly stumbled home it was raining, the rain sent into his face by an Idiot Wind. The perfect autumn of the night before was gone, wasted, the leaves didn’t swirl; they were plastered to the road by the rain. Worse, she was wearing trousers, her melody murdered by the coarse cloth of her jeans. Her raised collar and lowered head made her seem less approachable than ever. Then it happened, a bus rumbled by sending an innocent puddle through the air, soaking her left side. Her head rose like a tortoise waking to the sun’s first rays, although this had been a far ruder awakening. Will’s mind flashed, did chivalry still cut it? He would soon find out.

His first words, “My god, you’re soaked.”

Her first words, “I know, I hope you aren’t considering any lines about ‘Getting me out of these wet clothes.’” Her voice was beautiful, fragile; he could tell she could sing like an angel just by hearing her talk.

“Damn.” He replied, “I was just going to suggest…”

They laughed.

Nearby was a street café -“The Blue Heart Café”- with a patio heater blazing outside. The bleat of car horns could be heard from the queuing traffic.

“Would you like to stop for a coffee, get dried out so I don’t get tempted to make any more wet cloths quips?” he asked, trying to disguise the hope in his voice.

“I’d love to,” she replied. “My name’s Faith, what’s yours?”

Will told her his name and a smile crossed her lips as they sat at the table nearest the heater.

Later, warmed by the coffee and each other’s company they strolled through the night. They passed below a church tower, its full moon clock face glowing, and neither of them noticed the time.

Autumn drifted into winter while Faith and Will met regularly at The Blue Heart Café after work, they joked that it should change its name. Life was good and work did not seem quite as bad these days.

Right through until February Aberdeen’s winter remained incredibly mild. It was as if the city had forgotten its quest to prove, despite its geographical location, that it was actually situated well within the Arctic Circle. The weather had suddenly remembered this so made a late effort at bitter cold and driven snow. Upon waking to this scene Will crawled back into bed with Faith mumbling “Let’s not go to work today.”

“Okay,” came the response and there they stayed - two bear cubs in a duvet cave.

THE END