The sky looks like asphalt and the clouds are stained with oil; rainbows ripple, but they’re slick and false. It’s a day to stay inside and wonder about what might have been. It’s a day to find a window and let it all go.

He sits at the window, in the gray half light, and writes the same words in his journal.

Autumn leaves.

It’s spring outside. The calendar says as much. But inside? Autumn leaves. He mouths the words as he writes, feels them roll across his lips until they cease to have any meaning and become a string of sounds. They’re soft sounds. Words that ask to be whispered. They won’t echo; they’ll only last.

He weighs the words against the scratching of his pen and the ticking of a clock. He doesn’t remember ever buying a clock, but the ticking is there. It’s always been there – seconds measured by the pulse of time.

“Pulse of time,” he mutters. “Autumn leaves.” It begins to rain. Somewhere, a dog barks, twice, then goes silent. The rain is as lackluster as the sky, like it’s going through the motions like the rest of the day; like it’s falling because it’s what should be done. He wonders what rain would do if it had free will. Would it drown deserts, out of spite? Would it flood the places it loved because it wouldn’t want to be anywhere else? Or would it continue to go through the motions, because it was easy?

The clock ticks. Seconds turn into minutes, hours, and days, which fall soundlessly from the calendar. He imagines them, like leaves, littering the entirety of his house. Perfectly shaped leaves, numbered and labeled; seventeenth, dentist; thirty-first, Halloween; fourteenth, payday. He can almost hear them rustling in the shadows and corners.

The rain outside gives up trying. The ground is barely damp. Somewhere, far away, thunder rolls. A dog barks, twice.

If I were rain, he thinks, I would go somewhere far away from here. I would never fall. But, would I still be rain if I never fell? Isn’t rain realized when it falls? Before then, what is it? Just the potential for rain? Something static… something oily in the sky.

He sighs and listens to his pen. It still scratches, oblivious of his thoughts.

Autumn leaves.

Leaves fall, like rain. He knew an Autumn, once. She left too.