An Autumn’s Night
The night is coming. A time of fresh, crisp air and a sky bloated with light pollution. The days grow short, and the night grows longer and louder, reminding us more and more of its looming presence. It burns a cold flame over the sky and puts out the sun’s fire. It burns us with a blistering reminder. The night is coming.
I love the night. I wish I could embrace it outside more often. Sadly, the night is an unsafe time to walk alone. I am unable to walk outside without fear. But if I could walk outside without the fear of being attacked, I would walk around at 9 pm.
I ended up going home later than usual, around a week ago. In that experience, I rode the bus in fading daylight. I watched as the grey clouds grew bluer and bluer, brightening to a halt. It looked like the ocean had swallowed the sky whole, and we were being drowned in its welcoming abyss. The unlit buildings veiled the sky, their silhouettes molding and bending with the trees outside of them.
The streetlights came on, and the luminescence of the bright signage by a shopping mall felt like a surreal image I was watching live. Like I had witnessed some form of transformation: hatching from an egg. It’s a sense that everything in that moment was exactly as in the movies.
The sky became purple, then black. The hues of orange from the streetlights bouncing upwards. Once I left the bus, the fresh chill slapped me across the face. I jolted and covered myself with my sweater, wrapping my wings around my body in a vain effort to keep warm. The air told me one thing.
It’s autumn.
Autumn isn’t the worst. A lot of early autumn in Masadam-Yae feels like summer, but if the nights were cold; then winter hits, and it’s actually cold and uncomfortable. Autumn is kind. It gives you a reminder of what was, then a warning of what will be. Just like how spring carries you into the forever daytime of summer, autumn gently carries you into the 4 PM darkness of winter.
I think Autumn deserves a lot more than just pumpkin spice and falling leaves. It deserves a mention of the change in time and a recognition of how beautiful the night is.
There is a proverb amongst the aristocratic vampires in my parents’ home country: “Fear the moon, not the sun. It is the only force that can tell the sun to set.” I know that science would say many things about that, but there’s an underlying truth. The night is terrifying. So terrifying that it should be appreciated and loved.
The nighttime is a beauty, and I cannot stress it enough. If the night were safer, I would most certainly walk as much as I could. I would take in every last tree and plant in their shadowed turquoise dream. I would sit under a streetlight and embrace the artificial warmth. I would wander in the darkness and pretend I know the constellations from one another.
The night is coming. Autumn is coming. I will try to embrace it as my ancestors would. But probably from my bed instead of outside. The chill is just a bit too strong for my toothpick arms.
— Heleza
