October 2023

The Indecisiveness, Inauthenticity, and In-Betweenness of Fall

photo courtesy of Adobe Stock images 

By Leslie Flores

Fall was upon the town. 

James hated every scent, taste, and fallen leaf he came upon. He hated the wet soil, the way it stuck to the bottom of his shoes and crunched as it trailed behind him when he stepped into school. He hated the weather and the way it left him stuck on his porch, deciding if he needed a sweater or not. 

He hated the artificial pumpkin taste his coffee had, despite how much he insisted he wanted a plain black coffee. They must have infused the cups with pumpkins, James reasoned; they must have left them sitting in a room of artificial pumpkin flavor. 

He hated the indecisiveness, the inauthenticity, and the inbetweenness of fall, the way it couldn’t decide between cold and hot, the artificial pumpkin and the candle taste it brought. It didn’t burn like summer, and it didn’t have the authenticity of the pine scent winter carried. 

Yet somehow, he always found himself out on Halloween, following the same group of poorly costumed teenagers. Every year, James was a cat. His friends would smudge black paint over his nose and draw three crooked lines onto each of his reddened cheeks. 

James would scowl when they thrust a grinning plastic pumpkin-shaped bucket into his hand. At school, they held a costume competition, and James was sure if there was a category for “Most Egregious” that he and his friends would be the only qualifying candidates. 

“What are you?” James asked, staring at his friends in shock. 

“A baseball player, a ghost, and an apple,” the ghost replied through the bed sheet over her face.

“An apple?” James knew he shouldn’t ask questions, but curiosity killed the cat. 

“My physics teacher said she would give me extra credit,” the apple reasoned, holding up an apple and hitting James on the head with it. 

James couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of his friends. 

His enjoyment was short-lived. The cat lagged behind the overly excited teens, holding a baseball bat, a white bedsheet, and an unappetizing apple. It seemed that everything wanted to play pretend when the apple fell out of his grip and over the side of the sidewalk, rolling into a deep ditch. James could have abandoned the apple and continued his lifeless journey across the neighborhood, but what reasonable person would do that? 

James made his way down the ditch. It smelled of wet soil and homemade fertilizer. Once he reached the bottom, he picked up the apple from between his soil-caked sneakers. He stood up and was met with an outstanding sight- a pumpkin patch. 

The pumpkins sat nicely on a patch of soil in neat rows. They had prepared for fall all year, and they were putting on their best show. They had apparently done a great job because James was immediately scampering up the side of the ditch to get a better look. 

He stared at the orange pumpkins. It seemed like they were laughing at him, their toothy smiles gleaming in the moonlight. It made James remember how much he had hated every scent, taste, and fallen leaf. It reminded him of how much he yearned for a real season, one that was not in between. He gripped the bat in his hand tighter. 

That night the pumpkins screamed in fear as a wooden bat broke through their orange walls. They screamed as the bat gave them eyes and a grinning mouth. Once his weapon was dropped on the ground in satisfaction, James arranged three poorly carved pumpkins around him and lay on the wet soil. He sighed and pulled the white bed sheet over himself. He wiped the black paint from his burning cheeks. He inhaled the scent of the authentic, raw pumpkin. 

Fall was upon him now. 🐾