Leaves twirled through the air, their edges curled as if singed by fire, their vibrant colors beaming as though they were fire. They touched the ground with the grace of a ballet dancer, and then sat silent, waiting for the wind to blow them along.

In the night, their color faded with the rest of the day, and they were merely dark silhouettes, phantoms that crept up from the ground. The wind would creep down the roads, through the bony fingers of bare tree branches that made an otherworldly glow in the rare light of the moon, and the chilly breezes would, on occasion, ruffle a few leaves, causing them to crinkle and scrape the sidewalks as they rolled away; a truly ghostly noise.

Day dawned, and the leaves burned brighter than ever. They were the sun, strong and shining in the light of daybreak, in the crisp freshness that fell over the world. Any notions of ghosts, of spirits that haunted the world, had been blown away, just as that eerie wind was replaced by fresh gusts that smelled of apple cider and thanksgiving food.

Children giggled gleefully as they walked to and from school, stomping on fallen leaves, catching them as they flew through the air, jumping in neat little piles that blew apart at the slightest touch. Leaves were the harbinger of fall, of that magical time filled with shiny, crunchy apples freshly picked off of trees; of orange Jack-o-lanterns carved into complex patterns, lit by a flickering candle; of all of the good things that made their eyes shine in the cooling weather.

And so autumn went, with the leaves that flew gracefully to the ground.