Magic falling backwards

November is the darkness catching up with the day too soon. The pitch black outside a window. It is the shock of the sudden brightness when someone walks across the parking lot and activates the motion sensor light. The same electric shock runs through my body when an object thuds on the ceiling in the apartment above. It's the flight response when a train screeches on the tracks, the rushing of heat and jolting pulse in my throat. The same flashing panic when I see 00 00 on the digital clock and for a moment think the time has run out. November is a peculiar dream of standing outside a noisy, crowded room, looking towards the light, and a voice warning me there are demons inside. The fear latches onto me and I close my eyes as I enter, seeing with my hands, bumping and brushing past warm bodies in motion, never opening my eyes.

November is an almost unbearable quiet. Spending so much time at home, I have become more acquainted with its language and any break in pattern is unsettling. Everything runs on schedule. The clicking and clanking of the heat running through the pipes, the hum behind a wall, the rumbling fridge starting up like an old man clearing his throat, the cracking when the building takes a deep breath when it gets cold or raining, water dribbling, a radio turning on, the thump of the same shoe falling off the shoe rack in the hallway. The introduction of a new sound, the drip drip, interrupts the hiss, sends chills down my spine. The incessant tap  tap  tap, like a shaky leg under a table, is as loud and as infuriating as a jackhammer.

November is watching the leaves swirling outside in a storm. It is the walk after sunset, on the lookout for rabbits, who have come to represent little signs of hope. They sit very still, alone, on a lawn, pretending to be statues to elude predators. November is a promise of a letter when I see the pulsing white light from underneath my phone, resting upside down on the nightstand, like a searchlight out at sea. I am easily stirred. Reading a message from a friend, or listening to a voicemail, eases the aching to connect. November is standing by the window in the morning light and watching the last leaves fall. It's calling out to ask him to come look, look how they fall in slow motion like torn pieces of paper, and then calling out again to look how the wind rises them up again like magic falling backwards.