Portent of autumn

Lately we’ve been having some strange weather days that feel out of place. Like mid-summer pretending to be autumn. It's still warm, hot even, but overcast, with the kind of glare that makes you put your sunglasses on and, when you do, turns the day too dark to feel in control any more. Do you know what I mean?

The other day as I walked the dog to buy my afternoon coffee it was as though we were locked in an uneasy kind of silence. The soft steps of my sneakers and the clack-clack of Oliver’s claws on the footpath faded away. There was not another soul on the street. Everything around us was still but, up high, the tops of trees bent and twisted and danced to a wind that would play with leaves but not with us.

It felt like a message. I don’t know if it was a good one or something more malevolent, maybe it was nothing more than a portent of autumn.

Image credit: Chelsea Francis, licensed under Creative Commons