My curtains have tree branches all over them. Must've bought them some time last year, you know how these sales happen and sometimes, just sometimes, you find a piece of your dream on sale? I found mine. In the mornings, the sun rays filter through them. Soft tendrils of rays, curling around the window bars, making patterns on my floor, patterns of bare branches, gently swaying, like reflections on water.. It's getting cold in the mornings here. Winter will perhaps be cold this time. A festive smell hangs in the air. The air is heavy with the smell. The air settles like reminiscence on me. Birds seem chirpy these days. Some mornings I don't want to leave home. A distant ache reverberates through me. I don't know where it begins. I found a bunch of pink paper-tip flowers on my desk. It stands out among the dusty pile of books, one aged ink-pen and a few paint brushes. These brushes haven't been touched by colour in ages. The soft, wet strokes that leave their mark upon drying. Strokes that the sunlight makes on my worn out, red cement floor. These don't remain. Nor do the fallen leaves in the petite alley just outside my walls. Sometimes, they crunch beneath my steps. The gentle crunching noise makes me dream, but the crumbled pieces break my heart. When I return, those pieces are gone. I want them to remain, piles of soft yellow, curled brown, crisp red, overlapping, strewn. I want them to remain until a sudden gust of winter wind blows them away. Until the ache within reaches a crescendo and then, suddenly is there no more.
