It’s October. Voting for the midterms has begun. The clock is ticking. Midmorning. We are governed by a treasonous madman. It’s October, 2026. A lawnmower makes its rounds a few blocks off. I am tired. You probably are too. The stakes could not be higher, they say and they mean it and they are right. November is around the corner, the darkest months coming. It’s the second hand moving that’s making that tick tick tick. I can’t hear the leaves rattling in the wind, but I can see their fluttering shadows on the white clapboards of my neighbor’s two-story annex. Jays are noisy. They always sound insistent, like they’re demanding that all the other birds move over, but they might just be hollering out, Here I am and aren’t I grand? Toast for breakfast. A lawnmower drone. The dog sits at my feet. He is quiet. He is waiting for someone to put on their walking shoes and then he’ll make a racket. The tree truck winds up and then grinds. Makes screeching blue jays seem melodious by comparison. What do you hear at night when the house has gone quiet? Not my wishes, my sorrows – those are silent. Not his movements stirring in sleep – he has gone silent. For Halloween, I want a sparkly orange pumpkin light, like my neighbor around the corner. Not the usual skeletons, thank you very much. No, a twinkling pumpkin that grins, but not in a creepy way. Have you lost your way? I wanna believe you’re home. You found your way home. Not the bricks and mortar shelter, but the eternal expanse. Meanwhile, I’ll be considering what to make for dinner and wondering where I left the grey-handled scissors. Life goes on, they say, and it does. Vote like your life depends on it, and it does. The hydrangea blooms that remain are ballet pink – the color of slippers and leotards. Now the truck beeps in reverse. You’ll notice the absence of a curse. I can be restrained, you know — or you might not know, actually. The mowers are silent but the beeps get closer. The jay must’ve left to find her buddies. They don’t tend to be solitary, always yakking those big blue bruisers. And see? Bruisers — is that fair? The dog moves, sits, and sighs. I will move, sit, and sigh later. An afternoon coming of stitching, deleting Democratic texts begging for money, and then watching the ABC Murders, even though I can’t stand Malkovich’s weird and labored accent. But no snacks of chocolate or ice cream today! Gut pain last night. No thank you. The tree guys are gone. The shadows still waggle. The black walnuts fall in violent repetition. The clock! Oh, my Lord! The clock! Twenty minutes gone. A dull buzz of a notification by my side – Talarico this time. A jet passes overhead. I wish I could hear my heart beating. I wish I could hear his heart beating. Chainsaw? Whiny, intermittent — so not gone then, the tree guys, but my younger son, he is gone. Gone. A delivery van, the first of many, rumbles by, stops — its door clunks open, slides shut. Yesterday for me it was supplements and a sewing pattern. I’ve already determined I may not be able to figure the pattern out. It says to use the “template pressing method?” What the fuck is that? And there it is. The F bomb. Not for a treasonous, pathological president. Not for chainsaws ripping into the peace of morning. Not for the unbearable silence of his absence. But for a pattern that I paid good money for offering up incomprehensible instructions. Fold half an inch, then 5/8 of an inch, then stay stitch. What happened to sew front to back using a 5/8 inch seam? I’d like to hear what the yellowing blades of the lily-of-the-valley have to say. Would they quote Mary Oliver? Or would they curse the blue jays for shitting on them? Would they warn, snow is coming! The dark is coming! Vote like your life depends on it because it does. Before Saturday’s freeze, we will bring in the remaining plants. One person in this house loves the green invasion and one does not. Have you ever been attacked by an aloe — an aloe that looks like an alien being, no less? Never mind. Winter is coming. The clock says so. The light on yellow leaves says so. I don’t think I’m ready.

Written to a prompt, 10/15/26