The afternoons start to surrender, and the long night opens in previews. Under the bright kitchen lights, something stirs. Well fed and clean, small parts of us yearn for black and white, and the unwelcome touch of a cold strangers hand in the small hours.
Later, October becomes dull. Drab. It is that fifth spoonful of chocolate ice cream. You begin to lose the taste for it, but you keep plodding along, until the bowl is licked clean. The wind sips at the small provisions of joy left over from summer's carnival, leaving only grey and ice chips on your plate.
Near the end, moonlight rushes in like the tides and we begin to howl. The old tales, fully awake, are dark moths drawn to campfires, the best parts staying just beyond the orange light.
Time for one final dance to the music of creaky doors and footfalls on frost.