Fall came in haste that year. Whenever I close my eyes I can feel it again, it comes flashing through my body and soul like a Demon reaching out in perpetual despondency from a world beneath Hell; the feeling of being slowly but inescapably cornered off from life, feeling as had the sky itself converted the air into a compact mass of impenetrable pallid suffocation. It all happened so fast, and so totally without any warning. And so it stroke hard. It was summer, people were strolling carelessly in light summer clothes, laughing, talking, passing slowly; it seemed they just followed whatever whim came dancing through their minds, went with it as easily and carefree as the dancing whim itself. You see, there simply wasn't any foretelling what awaited us, what abated just around the corner. For already the following day the most direful of tempests came upon us. It was horrendous beyond imagination, my friend: all at once and from out of nowhere at all, the coldest, by far the most ghastly gale there ever was had unleashed its exasperation, wuthering, wailing, howling bitter and fierce. It ripped the leaves off the trees like wanted it to strip them of every fragile hope they tried to hold on to in a coat of leaves turned autumn-coloured without anyone noticing, or realizing it was this time of year already. It was as had a vicious storm been brooding, portentously. Un-sensed, unseen, like on the other side of the membrane. And now it was upon us, a tempest rising in rage and despair, as if, I thought, it wanted to reveal a long hidden fury, breaking free by ruthlessly tearing apart and strip naked the unsuspecting and unprepared trees standing in its way. 
          The sky loomed low overhead, and the world turned cold as if touched by the hand of Death. Anyone forced to go outside walked with fast, goal-oriented steps, leaning forward against the wind trying to get wherever they were heading as swiftly as possible. But if someone had dared to pause in this fuming storm, even for just a brief second, and if that someone then had, perhaps by accident, looked around, he would've noticed a glow in the air, a spectre in crimson, gold and amber whirling chaotically in the wind. A luminous glow in bright sunbathed colours. That glow came from the leaves, who had encapsulated the warmth and beauty of sunbeams previously caressing their surfaces, and now, as they whirled away to meet their death, they let that warm light shine on through in a breathtaking intensity.
          Yes, fall came in haste that year, over night it changed everything. And it brought with it another kind of fall: a soul nightfall. It hit me as hastily and unsuspectingly as the wind hit the naive trees standing outside my window. When I look back at it now, in the rear-view mirror of life, it feels like it all happened aeons ago and yet it is so close in my mind, as were it still ongoing in the centre of my brain. It's like everything about what happened back then is enclosed in a parallel universe, taking place in this very minute, in times of yore and beyond tomorrow. You see, it has all happened before, I recognize the pattern. If I try to tell you about it, as truthfully, systematically and in as many details as I can recall, will you understand me? Will you understand what happened that unblessed, ghastly fall, when God Himself seemed to look the other way? READ MORE...