Jo and Autumn

Jo swung her leg, kicking the pile of leaves in a big scoping motion. The leaves exploded in all directions from the impact, however the violence and chaos of the act faded quickly as the leaves fell gracefully back to the ground, landing with a softness and delicacy that eluded Jo.

As she continued down the path aimlessly Jo tipped her head back and looked at the greying sky above her.

Weather. What a strange concept Jo thought. It was something that you knew was there all the time, yet you were not always aware of it. All planets had it, every single one she had ever visited had weather and the changes that join it.

Space, now that didn’t have weather. Although it kind of did of course with all the magnetic radiation emanating from the stars and other celestial objects. Yeah OK you had to be near a planet, or several, to have any perceptual experience of it but wasn’t that the same in a desert? In a desert the weather can be the same for years and years with no change at all. Space was kind of like a desert Jo thought.

This was getting off the point. The weather here was perfect, it was almost sentient in the manner that it followed the moods of the changing landscape. Or was the landscape following the weather? Jo wasn’t sure. She was sure however that Autumn was taking its grip on this part of the world.

Autumn was possibly Jo’s favourite season. It was something newish to her. New in that way that the Commonwealth did not have it, old in the way that she was older than eternity.

Once she had sat and watched the life span of a universe. From the spring like explosion of matter and reality. Through the summer as things became more mellow and easy, to the autumn where entropy started to take hold and finally into the winter where cold and death ruled.

Something about the autumn appealed to Jo. Maybe it was the knowledge that everything was starting to run out of energy and die. It wasn’t quite as depressing as Winter. Nor as cheerful as the Spring, nor as whatever summer was.

Jo looked down at the trench she was walking in, it had been carved by her own feet. She had no idea how many times she had circumnavigated the planet, probably too many times if she was being honest with herself.

Maybe that was why she was being all morbid about the autumn.

She really needed to find something to do. 

An explosion of tedium