I can't see much, my eyes are teary from the cold wind. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I can't see much anyway, because of the rain. Too grey and too pallid sky above me, so I don't even want to look up. But under my feet, orange and maroon blobs of colour dance around and blur together till they are indiscernible, and even the wet cement feels like red velvet carpet. I don't want the world to perceive me, when I'm this happy and content, so I cover myself with my umbrella – bright pink, funny enough, just like my mood right now. Autumn has arrived, at last, foreseen and anticipated, a bad omen for the summer-lovers, a good omen for those who are not scared of the darkness. And if summer is certainty, inevitable sunshine and warmth, autumn must be the uneasiness, the ambiguity of what's coming, the transition from bright yellow sun to pitch-black everlasting midnights. Nature says, time to harvest, so I'm collecting chestnuts in the park, rain be damned, because this is it. Take what you need, pick what you deem vital for your survival for the long winter nights, and let the rest rot. Let the fallen excess decay, back to the ground, back to where it came from. Matter, energy never dies, it just changes form. And so, let it go. I'm telling myself as I walk in the park, „take what you need into the coming months, and leave the rest behind." I managed to gather enough, plenty of sunshine and more, for what's to come, because only god knows. I harvested enough love as well to keep me going, and what's left of him is already decomposing; stale, smelly, spoiled little something that couldn't survive the summer. Fragments of this love, blurry scenes of past-us play like a movie in my head, as I'm walking home, thinking of what's to come. I'm not scared of the cold, or the darkness. But what I'm scared of is: being haunted. Not by shadows, or ghosts, or apparitions, but by memories. And the weight of the bond we shared, that I still sense and feel every second of my life, that clings to my skin like a spiderweb I got caught in, impossible to shake off. Invisible mark on me, burned into my skin by the veiled cord between our souls that burns too bright and too strong. No darkness could fight this force, neither could I. I can't see much, my eyes are teary from the cold wind, I guess. I'm playing with the chestnuts, left hand deep in my pocket. Energy never dies, just changes form, so I'm thinking, what will this little love that survived the changing seasons turn into now? Will the coming snow bury it, melting it back into the soil, or will it stay inside me and fuel me until spring arrives yet again? Will it withstand one more season or is this the last of it? What do I even do with it... I wish I could give it back to him, „take what you need and leave the rest," but I can't. So I stay with it, pull it close to my chest as the wind picks up, and let it become. Something. Or let it decay. I leave the chestnuts on my altar, sacred little space that reminds me of nature, of abundance, and the whole big picture. Let my bright pink umbrella rest in the corner, reminding me that more gloomy grey days are to come, every time I look at it. The spiderweb shifts on my skin, reminding me of us, yet again; a phantom appearing in the corner of my eye, uninvited visitor, staying only for a short moment... I can't help but let out a sigh. I know it's gonna be a long winter.

I'm lying in my bed, freshly awake from a dream of him, and I can feel the earthquake slowly subsiding. The rivers of lava have solidified on the mountain as well, swelling it bigger, standing solid and proud against time and weather. I'm lying in my bed, and I close my eyes because the shaking is dying down, and suddenly I can hear the silence. The tectonic plates inside me have been reorganising themselves for millions of years now, shifting aimlessly and drifting around, colliding occasionally and shaking the core, shattering and breaking apart, flooding my crevices. But now it feels like they have fallen into their places. The two giants have connected at last, united and interlocked. They match perfectly. This has never happened before. And the fault line where they coalesce is flawless and uninterrupted; the slit is already melting into memory, intertwined till the end of time. Open-wound whitened to a scar, in the earth, all along my body. Even the hurricane moved past, only still water inside and under. Everything is in place, everything settled. It took a million years, but it feels like coming home after a war. This is what peace must feel like.