Other Wind
27 / October27 / October27 / October

Ash Gray at Twilight

Yesterday was wet and slightly cool, but not so wet the leaves didn’t rasp against our front path. The sky was gray. Yellow, deep red, and brown popped out against it. Time hung a little, or at least I felt like I was moving slower, waiting, and I couldn’t help but think of this:

First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys. Not that all months aren’t rare. But there be bad and good, as the pirates say. Take September, a bad month: school begins. Consider August, a good month: school hasn’t begun yet. July, well, July’s really fine: there’s no chance in the world for school. June, no doubting it, June’s best of all, for the school doors spring wide and September’s a billion years away.

But you take October, now. School’s been on a month and you’re riding easier in the reins, jogging along. You got time to think of the garbage you’ll dump on old man Prickett’s porch, or the hairy-ape costume you’ll wear to the YMCA the last night of the month. And if it’s around October twentieth and everything smoky-smelling and the sky orange and ash gray at twilight, it seems Halloween will never come in a fall of broomsticks and a soft flap of bed sheets around corners.

From Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury