The Summer Turns to Winter Overnight

Or Basingstoke. Or Reading.

This is the most depressing day of the year. At least if you have a job.

The day after the clocks change in the Fall.

The sunset has been getting earlier and earlier. But you could maybe pretend it wasn't true. That you were still stuck in that endless summer lull.

But not today.

It's one thing for the sun to set at 7. Or even 6.

But when it's dark at 5 or 4, you know the winter's coming on.

And with it all the darkness the year has kept at bay.

It's a smooth, long glide into dead trees and snowfall.

And then the long, cold winter.

But maybe this winter will be the exception.

An endless railroad trip north. Farther north than you can imagine.

Until the sound of the wheels on the track fades away and the sound of ice and snow under your boots takes over.

And you wonder again, as you have every year around this time, if this is the year you finally push yourself over the edge to madness.

And you turn up your collar, brace yourself against the cold, and head home in the dark, knowing every day you'll lose a little more daylight.

And every night you'll have a little more time.

To dream.