Indian Summer Sputtering

Hold onto the dulling gold in the leaves and trees as long as you can. The warmth is a trick—you know it is.

 

You wear T-shirts now in early twilight but before dawn, before the world sputters into Indian Summer, you bundle up, refusing as long as you can to turn on the heat. Soon it will be fuzzy slippers and afghans for evening television, crock pot meals to fortify you, sweaters you forgot you stored away.

 

Don’t let it fool you: The sun seems like it will never end, like your skin will always hold the heat, but even a momentary cloud can plunge you right to the outer-space chill of the coming winter.