This weird little piece contains some horror and general discomfort.

It is fall. There is a budding chill of the air that reminds you of the realization that ran up your spine the first time you developed a phobia. It feels the same, too, right down to the squirrels sitting on the branches and nibbling on acorns and detached incisors. (Wait, what?)

Your neighbor's dog dug up a bone from under the leaf pile. You don't remember it being there before. It is oblong and discolored, and sometimes you think that there may very well be more bones for your dog in the yard. One just has to know where to dig.

The leaves are changing colors. Green goes to a darkening, dripping red that collects under the trees like sap until the leaves fall to the ground. They stick there. It is not smart or safe to move them. Wait until the next rain, your mother tells you, and then the ground will run metallic. It certainly makes it easy to build piles to jump in, and so neither you nor your children complain. Sometimes you are worried the leaf piles will not relinquish them when you call them in for dinner.

The wind whips up trouble when it comes by. Occasionally, it crosses your mind that this is the type of weather in which people blow away. Tabitha down the road had her second child recently. It was not planned, but a mother often needs a replacement when her offspring is carried off by the breeze.