Autumnal

[rejectomorph]

Damp hangs about, too thin to be fog but thick enough to catch the moon's light and make the air slightly luminous. Night smells of decaying leaves and growing grass, of pine and cold earth. The silence is an absence of insects. The cicadas are all dead, and any surviving crickets are too chilly to chirp. The air is still, too, but a leaf or two will fall now and then, like a whisper in a quiet room.

When the waxing gibbous moon sets, more stars will appear, faintly blurred by the haze. In a few days there will be rain, and the nights will be cold enough that snow could fall. Fall might give way to winter even before the trees are bare. Tonight's damp feels like the breath of lurking December.