On the last day of her life I took her to the graveyard and thought about Fall. It was August 31st, the completion of summer to my way of thinking.

I love Fall. It’s my favorite season and I think it has something to do with the light. The glare of summer is softened and there seems to be a quietness, a gentleness afoot. It seems still out.

It was evening when we went and I wasn’t even going to take her at first. I go to the graveyard at least once a week and always in the evening to repose and consort with the dead. It’s so very quiet there, especially in the evening, and I love the way the loneliness feels against my skin.

I felt guilty, though, because I was having her killed at 11 am the next morning. Halfway there, I turned around and went home and got her. I sat her in the backseat, noticing how happy she looked and how bright her eyes were.

Although morning is a very close second, the evening of the day is my favorite. It is a settled and relaxed time that for some reason perks me up, stimulates me. My mind gets going with a clarity not usually present at other times. The same could be said about Fall, I suppose. The evening of the year.

She looked happy sniffing around the tombstones. She would look at me, her mouth open and her tongue hanging and her eyes shining. It was her smile. She was smiling at me.

I noticed that the Sun was setting. Sometimes I don’t notice, so lost am I in other thoughts, but that day I did. Gone from its perch up high, it was now relegated to the side of the sky by the inevitable rotation of the Earth. It protested fiercely with fiery, explosive beauty. It captured me and I knew I would remain there in the graveyard with her until it weakened and finally failed.

It was the least I could do. It was the least.

I watched, never taking my eyes off it. It grew angrier and angrier, yet I remained serene, contemplating the ends of things and places and times.

There are beginnings and middles and ends

(and I know what holds the most beauty)

The End

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