Autumn

The first day of autumn came like an old forgotten jigsaw of brown and orange. It was such a beautiful day that I decided to sit in the park and watch how things turned out. There was a lot of wind so I had taken my hat and placed it securely, or so I thought, on the top of my head.

The park was full of the little brown and orange jigsaw pieces. They drifted against the walls and blew like insects in the air. They made a good noise as they clattered against one another. By the bench where I sat, they were gathered in such number that it was like a carpet of noise under my feet.

There was a sudden change in the wind that surprised my hat and blew it to the ground. As I bent down to retrieve it, I remember there being a light rain in the air like dust. It was being blown in every direction. When I sat back up an old gentleman was beside me on the bench.

“Hello,” I said, “I didn’t notice you there before.”

“Hello,” he said, “I wasn’t until now.”

I liked his reply a great deal. It was exactly the reply I would like to have given in his place. I smiled and looked out over the park. The trees were dancing so vigorously that their tops were now entirely naked.

“It’s a beautiful day,” I remarked. It was a beautiful day.

“I'm glad you like it,” he replied, and leant back on the bench with his hands behind his head. He was breathing softly and a strange whistling sound came from his nose. I liked this reply too.

The man’s outfit was that of a traditional British outdoorsman. He wore leather boots, heavy woollen trousers and a filthy waxed coat. Filthy was perhaps not the right word. I have known people with filthy coats in the past, but this coat had an agricultural significance all of its own. You could have probably grown good potatoes in folds of its fabric. However, the most striking feature of this man was his magnificent hair. It was white and thick and grew in every direction imaginable. Within it, and please bear in mind I could only examine its periphery, was a good assortment of leaves, moss, twigs, and other things I could not name. He was perhaps one of the few men I have met who could truly say, “Hello, I need a hat.”

He caught me staring at him and offered the kind of smile one would give to a precocious child. “What can I do for you?” he said. He made a whistling noise without opening his mouth.

If I didn’t ask I knew that I would regret it later. “I was wondering why you are dressed as you are?” I said. “You seem prepared for the elements.”

“Indeed!” said the man. “I dress like this for my job.”

“And what would that be, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Not at all!” he said. “I do many things throughout the year, but right now I’m in charge of the autumn.”

Having already become somewhat used to unexpected replies, this seemed to go straight in without touching the sides. I found myself saying in all seriousness, “Oh! Well, it must be a very busy time for you.”

“Exceedingly!” said the man. “There is an awful lot of wind to be made. Every year there are more people to blow about and then there are the leaves to be scattered. Of course, there are wind farms now as well. Wind farms are really very awkward.” He seemed set on considering wind farms for a while, so I gave him a moment. Eventually he let out a weary groan and leant back on the bench. He looked suddenly quite glum, and tremendously tired. He rubbed his eyes with large calloused hands and yawned.

I thought perhaps I should try to take his mind off wind farms and how awkward they were. “What’s your favourite part of the job?” I asked.

The man took his hand from his eyes and looked at me with sudden mischievous glee. He let out a small chuckle and leant over to me as if he were telling a secret. “Umbrellas!” he said, like he was at the circus. “Umbrellas are my most favourite things in all the world. That’s the good thing about living in the city. There are lots of umbrellas!”

“Umbrellas?” I asked.

I’ve never seen a man point with his eyebrows before, but this he did in a way that was far superior than using a finger. I followed the line from tangled white hair, over the playing field in front of us, to the path on the opposite side. There, a lady was walking a dog and holding an umbrella out in front of her like a medieval knight. It was one of those happy umbrellas that showed all the colours of the rainbow. Within an instant, the wind and leaves had swirled around behind her and with a pleasing WHOOMF, the umbrella was turned inside out. The dog became very excited and dragged the lady about the path. There was a great deal of yapping.

I chuckled into my hand and the man made a dry laugh as if he was filled with the leaves that sat all around us. “That’s quite a skill.” I said.

“Thank you,” said the man, drying his eyes with his hand. “It gets me though the day.” He looked quite a lot better.

There was a sudden break in the cloud and the wind changed again. I liked how the dried leaves piled up at the side of my feet, like they were trying to explore the lower regions of my trouser leg. I felt a sudden cold and looked to my side. The old man was gone. I stood up and looked around. On the other side of the park, the lady was wrestling with her ruined umbrella. It seemed to like its new look and was putting up a good fight. I looked behind me and saw the magnificent white hair of the man bobbing in the distance. The rest of him was perfectly camouflaged against the autumn that spun like brown and orange jigsaw pieces all around.

The Mill

The walls of the mill are streaked black with time and neglect, and bowed out like something is rotten inside. Once these walls were red brick, straight and proud, but those days don’t even belong to memory now. The windows are done-with target practise for generations of children. Rocks, catapults, grubby old air rifles. Some of the small ones on the sixth floor held out until a few months ago. The lower ones are heavily boarded and covered in the graffiti of years.

The roof is losing its battle with the autumn wind. Already it’s half gone, a sagging broken smile offered to the gathering crowd in the hope that it will be returned. So far no one has smiled back. All around, brightly coloured men climb into machinery like houses or stand talking into radios. They all smoke and are the only noise.

The wind picks up dried leaves and dust from the floor; the men cover their eyes. The machines briefly halt their approach but don’t get any quieter. The crowd examine their feet. The cold wind carries across the yard and blows through the empty building with a deep, sad sound that's lost in the noise of machinery.

The smile in the roof is the first thing to drop. It opens wide and falls with a heavy sigh. Birds vacate through windows and come to rest in symphony on power cables nearby. They whistle a jumbled but affectionate farewell.

Like an end-of-show curtain the front wall drops, somehow leaving the rest of the building in tact. It takes everyone by surprise, even the man with the radio and name badge.

The late afternoon sun slants through the windows on the opposite side, cutting through the autumn shadow cast on the street below. For one brief moment before the collapse, everyone stops to stare at the lonely relic of white cotton on the second floor. It’s as pure and fragile as the day it was made, and waves like a perfect golden sail in the cold autumn wind. No one can make out what it’s attached to, and no one gets the photograph in time.

A Silver Bird

I was walking in a field of long grass, inspecting the seeds and listening to the wind blow past when I felt something hard against my foot. I looked down and noticed a silver bird in the shape of a bracelet half buried in the earth. I picked it up and held it in my hands. It was silver like a reflection of the moon and felt good to touch. It was colder than I expected. I held the bird up close to my ear and it told me that it had become lost trying to find its way home. It had a nice sound to its voice.

I placed it carefully in my inside coat pocket and walked to the top of the nearest hill. Looking down into the next valley, I noticed a house nestling in some trees. The house was small and white, and had a gentle smoke pouring from the chimney that wandered toward the top of the valley.

I walked down to the house and saw a young woman kneeling down planting silver seeds in her garden. They glinted raw sunlight as she held them in her hand. All around, silver necklaces grew from the earth, coiling themselves around whatever was there. Bushes planted in neat rows flowered silver rings that shimmered playfully as the wind swirled through the garden. It was an incredible sight. When I looked back at the woman she had stood up and was facing me, wiping her hands on her apron. The wind blew brown hair across her face and she placed it carefully back behind her ear. She smiled and said hello.

I walked up to her and held out the silver bird. I kept my hands gently around it like I was riding a horse. She took the bird bracelet from me and held it for a time, perhaps appreciating its coolness as I had done earlier. She held it up to her ear and smiled in one corner of her mouth.

After a while she handed it back to me and pointed loosely to a small outbuilding with a tree growing against it. The branches of the tree were pinned to the wall. It was so laden with silver bird bracelets and earrings I doubted whether it could support its own weight. As I walked toward it, the other birds chirped excitedly. The bird said thank you as I held up my hands and it hopped onto a branch to join its friends.

As I passed the woman she smiled at me and told me thank you. She held out her hand and offered me a bird in shape of a ring. It was a very small bird and would only fit on my little finger, but it fitted there perfectly. I said thank you and set off through the long grass back over the hill, feeling the wind of the valley blow past me and listening to the song of the silver bird that was perched on my little finger.

[O: Here, I guess...]

Another Planet

A darkly thick green light defines this late night dawdler. He’s invisible but for the glow of the emergency exit sign- it's the only thing turned on in this decomposing hotel. In emerald shadow he sits in front of final one o’clock beer, a lank newspaper there also. Someone had sex with someone else, or so some other alleges. As you approach, he fixes you with hobgoblin eyes aside unfathomable frown. He’s angry red by day and all hellish scowl, the warmth of the day’s sun emanating from his still half naked wrinkled body. He’s Earth-bound, no doubt, but his skin looks like the surface of another planet entirely.

A Moment, Monday

Tonight was going to cause problems, this much he knew. Whether adorned with nervous silences and downcast eyes or the belly laughs he hoped for, trouble waited for him somewhere ahead. Right now it was hidden from view, but he could already detect a faint, mischievous giggle. He tried to tell himself that it would be fine, that after all this time things would have probably changed. Unconvinced, his inner realist leant back, raised its eyebrows and silently folded its arms.

He couldn’t concentrate. Equipment hummed around him, analysis tools with flickering lights vied impatiently for attention. He turned them off, uselessly. He picked up his bottle of water and walked to the open office window, filling his lungs with the warm sea air and watching the lawn gallop in the breeze. He loved the weather here. Something was always happening. It made a sort of sense. Slowly, calm returned.

His stomach twitched pleasantly; a result of dread and excitement in equal measure. Walking back to his desk, the sea breeze still on his neck, he accepted that after tonight it would be over, finally and forever. Even that turned out to be wrong.

A Love, A Wind

Outside, it's raining almost hail. She can’t concentrate. She’s sat at her desk, legs held closely together, biting her lip and imagining that it’s him. She does this until the pain is unbearable, releases, and then savours the momentary cold, perfect ache. She’s tingling all over and outside is real hail now.

Later, there’s no wind. Her friends don’t know it, but she is now pierced in six places, all of them for him. She sent him photographs in her last letter. She closes her eyes to the cold grey evening and explores each one in turn, reaching orgasm effortlessly. She whispers his name to make it harder. A wind comes up and brushes across her face. It smells of the lilac tree outside her house or him, she can’t decide.

Afterward, she lies there catching her breath, for a while daydreaming in the billowing clouds. The wind has picked up strongly. She sits up, rubs her face back into life and flicks on the television set. He smiles at her and she smiles back. He tells her there will be more hail tomorrow. The blind clatters against the bedroom window but she doesn't look.

Excerpt 01

A love, a wind

We made a long and slow love. A wind came up and the windows trembled slightly, the sugar set fragiley ajar by the wind. I like Pauline's body and she said that she liked mine, too, and we couldn't think of anything to say. The wind suddely stopped and Pauline said, "What's that?"
"It's the Wind."

A lamb at false dawn

Pauline began talking in her sleep at false dawn from under the watermelon covers. She told a little story about a lamb going for a walk. "The lamb sat down in the flowers," she said. "The lamb was all right," and that was the end of the story. Pauline often talks in her sleep. Last week she sang a little song. I forget how it went. I put my hand on her breast. She stirred in her sleep. I took my hand off her breast and she was quiet again. She felt very good in bed. There was a nice sleepy smell coming from her body. Perhaps that is where the lamb sat down.

In Watermelon Sugar, Richard Brautigan