Autumn (Seasonal, #1)

by Ali Smith

Very pleased to meet you both. Finally. How do you mean, finally? Elisabeth said. We only moved here six weeks ago. The lifelong friends, he said. We sometimes wait a lifetime for them.

All across the country, people felt it was the wrong thing. All across the country, people felt it was the right thing. All across the country, people felt they’d really lost. All across the country, people felt they’d really won. All across the country, people felt they’d done the right thing and other people had done the wrong thing.

Always be reading something, he said. Even when we’re not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant.

I don’t like it when the summer goes and the autumn comes, she said. Daniel took her by the shoulders and turned her round. He didn’t say anything. But all across the landscape down behind them it was still sunlit blue and green. She looked up at him showing her how the summer was still there. Nobody spoke like Daniel. Nobody didn’t speak like Daniel.

It’s all right to forget, you know, he said. It’s good to. In fact, we have to forget things sometimes. Forgetting it is important. We do it on purpose. It means we get a bit of a rest. Are you listening? We have to forget. Or we’d never sleep ever again.

What I do when it distresses me that there’s something I can’t remember, is. Are you listening? Yes, Elisabeth said through the crying. I imagine that whatever it is I’ve forgotten is folded close to me, like a sleeping bird. What kind of bird? Elisabeth said. A wild bird, Daniel said. Any kind. You’ll know what kind when it happens. Then, what I do is, I just hold it there, without holding it too tight, and I let it sleep. And that’s that.

She’s been waiting for you since she was ten years old,

November again. It’s more winter than autumn. That’s not mist. It’s fog. The sycamore seeds hit the glass in the wind like – no, not like anything else, like sycamore seeds hitting window glass. There’ve been a couple of windy nights. The leaves are stuck to the ground with the wet. The ones on the paving are yellow and rotting, wanwood, leafmeal. One is so stuck that when it eventually peels away, its leafshape left behind, shadow of a leaf, will last on the pavement till next spring. The furniture in the garden is rusting. They’ve forgotten to put it away for the winter. The trees are revealing their structures. There’s the catch of fire in the air. All the souls are out marauding. But there are roses, there are still roses. In the damp and the cold, on a bush that looks done, there’s a wide-open rose, still. Look at the colour of it.