October Riding Shotgun

Nine P.M. on a Thursday night and I’m driving down a black highway, Mozart on the car radio, October’s fingers caressing my cheek. The season has crept inside the car and sits next to me, riding shotgun.

October’s hair is a riot of oranges and reds, her eyes are leafy brown flecked with tawny gold, her gown a diaphanous black shroud that shows off her legs. October has great legs.

She smiles and leans close, whispers in my inner ear, incomprehensible secrets of the fading light, the growing dark, the mysteries written across the sky in the smoke from a thousand chimneys. October smells like candy corn and apples left on the tree just a little too long, sweetness going to rot. Her breath is cider, strong and sweet. She tastes like Halloween and her skin is chilly.

We drive through the night, toward the bonfire glow of city lights. October laughs and stretches her arms over her head. She gathers the last dregs of summer in her black-nailed hands and crams the light and warmth into her mouth, devouring it. In our wake the shadows thicken and things take shape, we are the head of a phantom parade, birthed of the dark and the dying light.

October drapes an arm across my shoulders and smiles at me. Her black gown shifts, sliding down, exposing her pale throat, the gentle swell of breasts. She blows me a kiss, full of dreadful promises and sweet memories, and is gone as quickly as she came.

Nine P.M. on a Thursday night and I’m driving down a black highway, the radio switched off, wishing October could remain a little longer.