Autumn Winds

They walked together in the twilight, arm in arm, down the boulevard and onto the bridge. She had never felt so happy. She glanced up at him, at his profile, and sighed with contentment. Oh, sure, as the years rolled by she'd find out all his irritating faults and foibles and would look at him clearly with both her feet on the ground; but that would be some faraway tomorrow. Now, right now, she saw him through a mist of joy. He was wonderful and perfect and she felt herself dancing among the emerging stars, free from gravity, free from everything except her love for this man. And they would be blissfully together as long as life endured. She smiled, so warm in her love.

And then the stranger approached.

She clutched at her beloved's arm in shock. Was that -- was that stranger real? No, he couldn't be! Although he wore his hat low she could see his face was wan, unnaturally wan with the paleness not of flesh but of a skull. And his eyes were so hidden in shadow that they looked like empty sockets. And in spite of his overcoat she could see he was thin, incredibly, impossibly thin. It can't be real! It's some sort of terrifying vision! And the figure kept advancing toward her. She tried to stop but found herself too weak to resist her unaware companion's steady gait. She tried to whisper her alarm but couldn't make a sound. All she could do was clutch her lover's arm even more tightly and stare at the advancing unreal figure.

And then, mere inches away from her, the figure politely doffed his hat and silently continued on his way into the growing darkness. A short while after he -- or it -- had passed them, she found her voice.

"That thing ... that man! Oh! Didn't you notice him?"

"No, not really," her darling casually replied. "I wasn't paying any particular attention to him. What about him?"

"Didn't you see how bleached his face looked, and how thin he was?"

He patted her hand. "Well, no. What about it, my dear?"

"'What about it?'" she cried. "Why, even with his coat on you could see he was little more than a ... than a walking skeleton! He was a skeleton ... a walking fleshless skeleton!"

He gently kissed her forehead and chuckled, "Well, there's no need to be distressed by that, my dear. It's not all that uncommon. It only means the poor soul is just not comfortable in his own skin."

She shoved him over the bridge and kept on walking into the gathering dusk.