Autumn arrived swiftly like a child bounding towards a carnival; regal golds, deep scarlets, flamboyant oranges, burnished bronzes, each blanketing the frozen ground like a patchwork quilt. Now, the colors have decomposed, leaving the pale silver of the moon, the steely blues of the sky, the downy green of a pine bough. Winter has crept in like the slow forthcoming of disease, but no imparted warmth will bloom from a ceramic mug that may soothe this bitterness. Puffs of breath eddy through the air, mingling with a heavy fog that cradles the early morning in its depths. As the days grow colder and the late afternoon is succumbed by the darkness of nightfall, we embrace the festivities of the year’s end. Glossy red berries are threaded upon twine string, yellow wax melts and drips and pools upon a window sill, and frost clings like a delicate gossamer web to the season’s remaining leaves. We count down the days until we will no longer be waking in the cold silence of the early morning. Until we will no longer wait for a yellow school bus to emerge from the fog. Soon, our hearths will be lit and our hearts similarly inclined, hoping for a glimpse of snow which will cloak the world in its white caress like the fallen leaves months prior.