I tarried awhile on the bridge, taking pictures of the river in early morning autumn fog, imagining myself a character in the atmospheric opening paragraph of a spy novel, or obscured somewhere deep in the umpteenth verse of a T. S. Eliot poem. "Who is the third who always walks beside you?" It's the gloomy ghost of a street-sweeper, perhaps, forever doomed to wave his spectral broom at swirling leaves. Or maybe it's just a sleepy college student returned from Coronavirus break. I had not thought Intro To Western Civilization had undone so many.
Despite the strong claims of Spring to be the season of renewal and rebirth, I've always felt Autumn is the true time of fresh beginnings, probably because September was the month when school started and year-long leases were signed for new apartments with new friends in new areas of the city. In other words, I associate Autumn with embarking upon great adventures, with a first foot on the road of those picaresque quests that lead to an exciting future. But here I am on the bridge again, neither here nor there, as yet another Autumn floats upstream with the fog. I can't help thinking the apples I picked were already rotten.
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