Autumn rain

"Dear Husband,
How are you? I hope and pray that you’re just fine. It’s been another year that you’ve gone. Still it’s feels like eternity. Another autumn gone by. And it’s not the same without you.

Have you ever imagined how our life is entwined with this season?

I can still remember when we first meet. Autumn’s sun ablaze in the sky. I wore an orange dress that day. How you laughed saying my dress had set fire in the scenery! Though I looked angry but I still think that it was amusing while I looked into the deep blue eyes of yours. That was the day I fall for you. Like the fire and ice have collided.

Seasons after seasons passed but nothing is more refreshing than the soft balmy breeze of autumn filling each corner of your lungs.

Each day was an adventure after the day I’ve meet you. Remember the walk through the meadow or watching the huge, fluffy, white cloud passed over us? And remember how you named each cloud by its shape and made stories about them? They were hilarious, have I told you that before?

Those wild walks though the autumn woods? How the silence of the woodland broke as the twigs and leaves crunched beneath our feet? The mesmerizing wild flowers and the vibrant scarlet and red leaves of autumn. Like a red color palette was splashed all over the Mother Nature. And that river streaming through the wood? It was a river like no other. Its golden red water rippled as the autumn leaves fall and the sun glowed. Rippled through our time together.

That was a day straight from a fairy tale, the day you proposed. Under that oak tree. The crimson vivid leaves were like raindrops, poured all over us giving us blessing for the new life.

Do you remember the harvest festival? And the all the pumpkins? How much you just loved the smell of fresh sun-dried hay and the freshly husked maize! And those cinnamon over the hot apple pie? I can still see those sparkles of your blue eyes when I finished baking. I miss those days when you recited the lovely poems and almost dried-up leaves rustle against each other, making the poems alive.

That was a magical night when we watch the meteor shower. As the dusk fell and God painted the sky Prussian blue with a paintbrush, the Orion peeped over the horizon. We just sat and let the hours passed by as the stars fall. Chilly winds made us shiver, just a love letter from the winter. Orion walked across the sky as the night passed and sun-rays shone through the remaining last few hanging leaves. Showing those intricate veins of red and auburn within them.

That day was the worst as when we moved to town. Still autumn came to the town in a new look. Remember the time when it rained even in autumn? I loved it how you called that day, ‘autumn rain.’ The whole town was smudged into shades of orange, red and scarlet. Even the sodium street lights seemed natural. Can we shower in that rain again?

Reminiscing that day, when you left for a new destination. In another end of the world. Red maple leaves paved your farewell path. My whole world changed. Now it’s autumn here again. The nature has taken its makeup as usual but nothing is the same as you’re not here.

I’m sending you this maple leaf and its balmy scent of autumn along with this letter. This is the only touch of autumn I can send to you.

Lots of love and kisses. Write soon.
Your dearest wife. "




A man is at war in the cold harsh winter of Serbia. Bullets pierce the mist of cruel climate. Attacks and counter attacks like the hell has broken loose. Suddenly a bullet hit the man in the chest. He knows he won’t make it with all those injuries. He took out a blood soaked envelope and pulls out the letter within. Those words from his wife is now ruby red. For the last time, he traces the words with his trembling fingers and memories rush over him as he closed his eyes. A dried up red maple leaf fell from the envelope. A red autumn leaf, over the white snow.