Welcome to October, You're Fucked

My feet, bare feet for effect and pomposity, press down over the arboreal confetti. I'm walking aimlessly, chasing the last of the summer away beyond the threshold into the familiar and forlorn.

Autumn greets us all differently as the sky darkens earlier and the daylight hours shrink. Irreverence surrounds me, but it's here in October it reaches its peak, when I account in my ledger for the previous quarters of a year that was sullied by grief and anxiety and the painful reminders of the past.

If you yield to autumn, it will yield to you. October offers sanctuary to those hoping for it from the height of summer. An end to the buzz of bees, wasps, hornets and lawnmowers. Pollen junkies don't exist, but those with hay fever do, and wait patiently they do for the first sign that they can leave the house without supplementation.

But whether we like it or not, October welcomes all. While some reside locked away and covered in layer upon layer, others relish this ceremonial rerobing after the fleshy displays of summer in the hottest places and Scotland.

The transition from the prettiness of summer to natural sanitation, decrepitude and decomposition gathers pace with every calendar day.

The horizon is dim and brisk with November and winter preparing.

As I walk through town,

Brown leaves crumble beneath the soles of my feet as the souls of the trees wail in joyful agony. The way of the world, death and rebirth. The naked trees feel no shame, though tip and bough hope we show mercy to their crooked nudity. Their ravaged skin is displayed for octoberites to stroke and caress like kids in a sweet shop (candy store for you Americans) or creepy old men and women stroking the ladies and gentlemen in their dusky dens of iniquity where the red is synthetic and the brown is something you hope you never see. Be it dried blood or dried...

But some don't visit the body shop for warmth in October. Some have partners and beds and don't sell themselves short or pay over the odds.

The dark seems to awaken the octoberites to want, desire and plead for skeleton boners and accoutrements of toffee, nuts and cobwebs.

None of that nauseous fake snowstorm shit show you have planned for winter. Welcome the spiders into your home, let them adorn your October abode in the finest of laces. You could strip for the spiders and let them dress you in the most scandalous silken lacy lingerie.

The diversions are as rampant as the brothels of October, and so we need to remember that pumpkins die by the end of autumn (or fall to you American octoberites), so while that jack-o'-lantern may look gruesome and worthy of a trip to Halloween Town, a few weeks later it'll be festering and smell of puke like the puke in the brothel toilet.

There’s no escaping October and its acolytes; they’ll hunt you and knock knock at your door until you offer them chocolate and sweets, or candy if you’re American. The reds and browns of the deciduous are pleasing, and the cider can be warmed in a bucket by a heathen or equally God-fearing brunette who’s gone grey. A blanket’s embrace, with the fire or radiator blasting warmth.

Hide from Howard Phillips and his racist opinions, or offer him to the spiders as a treat while they dress you in your sexy negligée and the pumpkins scream bloody murder as you scoop their innards and carve a lifeless visage into them.

Welcome to October, you’re fucked.