I usually feel it when the leaves start to fall, when the sky drains of color, when the air grows chilly and listlessly stirs the dead leaves on the sidewalk. I can feel part of my brain start to shut down, as it has done year after year, about this time, when the leaves start to fall. They tell me it is chemical, but that can't explain the piercing of my heart, the emotional pain that causes me to shudder as fear and sadness begin to grow in my chest. And I can't stand to look another human in the eye when I start to feel like this because I know that their gaze will steal in through the windows of my soul and see the rot that is building inside me. They will be repulsed. It is easier to hide, to crawl into the darkened cave I've created in my apartment, with the blinds drawn and the phone shut off, sleeping fitfully in a mass of blankets piled on the bed, waking to yearn to be outside, to be free only to have that weight on my chest hold me down in the bed. Those mornings I feel as I'