Autumn; approaching full dark

Back in the fall, senseless with ongoing-but-unresolved grief, I wandered the streets of my hometown.  I was staying at my parents' by then, where I grew up, so this dark time afforded explorations of former neighbourhood haunts, usually under the sepulchral glow of the moon.

My sister was dying from lung cancer, and fall was insultingly beautiful. It wasn't fair that autumn was beautiful, the leaves all changing hues, with that deep burning wine smell of leaves heavy in the air, and that she was still dying. 

Among familiar streets and, at times, down by the St. Lawrence River shoreline, I often took pictures of the moon, trying to make sense of the senseless impeding death of my sister. No amount of walking revealed any order, but I got out and walked because it was better than not doing anything after debriefing my parents about the day's events, before or after their daily visits. Around that time, I had received an urgent consolatory note from an estranged acquaintance, which I did not answer. 

In my alternately mournful, pensive numb and imaginative evening travels, I often ended up near a particular red-brick apartment. One night, a few windows in the second and third floors were aglow, which I ascribed to coincidence and not invitation, and I never went to the front door that night, or any others. My mind concocted all sorts of scenarios never tested out practically. The closest I got was one evening, where an older male smoker came out front, facing the main street, alighting as I passed by. I was too distraught, too lost, to even bid them anything resembling an evening greeting, as is my usual habit, and hurried past.