It was the fall that surprised me the most. Summer seemed to go on forever, endless heat and misery. When the leaves finally started changing, my eyes were still blinking out the sweat, trying to focus on the shimmering horizon. When it became acceptable to wear heavier clothes, I persisted in the delusion that this was merely a blip, and that the inevitability of summer would win out, sense be damned.

It finally hit me standing atop my building, feeling the inarguable autumn winds whip at me. The smell of woodsmoke filled my nostrils, wrapped around me and told me, "Now is our time." This was not unwelcome, but after the quiet misery of the last winter, the muddy revelations of that awful spring, and infinite summer, I just wasn't ready to accept that fall was here. But like an epiphany, fall was here, and the treetops I could see from here beckoned to me in their oranges, reds, and golds.

The wind spoke to me, told me that it was my time, its time. That like a leaf I could change, and that fall would never end. I could change, that change would be everlasting, and like a leaf I could float out in the sky, never resting, never having to decide. It was the fall that sur