The time of year when the leaves become the right shade of orange, and the rustling of the wind becomes a soothing whistle, and the air in your room becomes biting and sharp. It happens before you start using the heating. You fall asleep, wrapped in a thicker blanket, and sleep more soundly than when it is warm.
You would wake up, rested and fresh, but also slower. You can feel your thoughts, meandering about your head, dozing on and off about pastrami on rye and the cat video where the tabby hugs her sister, and the fuzzy slippers you have waiting for you downstairs. You might pull your phone off your nightstand, and poke the charger away. You might flop onto your back and read your emails, or memes, or the news.Your mind is in a daze as your cognition treads the border between sleep and awareness with the physical coordination and mental acuteness of a gymnast confidently walking the tightrope.
If you are lucky you can turn to your left, and find your cat gazing back at you.
You can present your nose and wait for him to start nuzzling against it. His gentle purr threatening to push the balance to the edge of dreams. He purrs, and you feel at home. He purrs and you feel a feeling you know all too well. You might glance to your left and see the thick tome that you always come back too for this occasion. 
It gathered dust since last Autumn, and a cobweb is gently wrapped around it. The spider probably worked diligently to make a web so thick and well made. It’s transparent and thin to you, but to a fly its a genuine prison, just like every season besides Autumn is a prison for the Duma Key.
Eventually, after your cat saunters away nonchalantly, you get up from your bed and shiver. The air is even more crisp than when you fell asleep, but that’s perfect. You put on the over sized sweatshirt from high school hanging on your door. Its nicks and scratches carry their own stories. As far as clothes go, this one has seen some things.
You brush away all the spider’s hard work, and grab the Duma Key. The cover has Stephen King’s skeletal face staring at you. You stare back. You wonder why you never took it off. You don’t take it off though.
You make yourself some green tea. Make sure its strong , but not strong enough to push the balance and break the quiet tension of the moment. You walk down the stairs, one stair at a time, and settle on your coach. You can finally feel the moment you had been waiting for since you woke up being within reach.
You crack open the Duma Key as you have for countless Autumnal mornings. You deeply inhale the dust that gathered between the leaves of the book every single year since 2008 when your father bought it for you. Your morning has been made, the rest is just a cherry on top.
And when you are done, you put it back and let the spider get back to work.
The Junction Journal 