A line formed across the glass. Textures rose against the flat, clear surface; One line leading into another until a five sided crystal was visible from the warmth of the inside room.

“Its getting cold” he said

Along the window another line of ice grew, this one into another unique and temporary pattern.

“Isn’t it odd they are so beautiful yet have such a short life,” he said quietly to himself.

While the ice slowly transformed the clear window glass into an opaque white, he moved about the house, looking out one window and then another. All around the frosty creations filtered the waning sunlight in bent rays through the inside of the heated home.

"It’s going to be hard adjusting to this, especially when I have become used to the other rhythm," he thought to himself.

He paced the floor; all while pondering the day and the plans for it he had made to fill in the hours. Hot water flowed from the kettle into the cup he held.

“One more cup before I start” he thought.

The tea bag floated in the water and he swayed the cup back and forth and stared at the changing color of the water. He sipped and watched snow landing on the rust colored leaves resting on the frozen ground.

“I think this snow will stick. The colors will be gone by the afternoon and all we’ll see now will be white,” he said to himself.

From the house he heard the sounds of cars moving along the road, some faster than they should and some just barely making it down the road. He leaned toward the window and thought he recognized the sound of an engine’s pitch. Course and gravelly, it was the sound of an older car, one needing the attention of a mechanic. It churned past the house and down the road and he caught a glimpse of it as it passed.

Some time passed and he drained the last from the cup. Snow had stacked against the frozen window glass and the leaves were a mix of rust, faded orange, brown and white.

He watched the snow falling and thought “Isn’t it funny that such a short time ago things were green and vibrant? No matter though, there are things that need to be done.”

He walked across the room and gathered the envelopes to be mailed. He grabbed the stack of bank slips and papers, his truck keys, and walked out the door. Snow slowly fell on him as he made his way to the truck. He slipped slightly on a wet and heavy leaf but corrected himself before he fell to the ground.

“Time to remember how to walk on the ice and snow” he thought while he opened the door to the truck.

A layer of ice had formed on the handle and the door struggled to break the seal of rime covering the truck. He sat down and felt the hard, cold seat.

“It will take some time to get the seat warmed up and feeling soft again” crossed his mind while he put the key in the ignition and started the vehicle.

The engine strained against the cold but came to life after a short struggle with the elements.

“It isn’t that cold,” he thought, “no need to let it warm up.”

He shifted into gear and slowly moved out of the driveway. As he rolled down the road he noticed the trees and the austere branches. The sun wasn’t as high in the sky as it had been just a few weeks ago.

“October sun is always an adjustment. The light change makes it hard on people this time of year. The light change makes it hard on me this time of year” he spoke under his breath while he drove.

He was used to talking to himself. Things had unfolded for him through the years and found him alone much of the time. Most conversations he had were with himself. And then he thought about the car he recognized. He would see it around town, parked here and there. He had inadvertently committed the engine noise to memory, another way he could recognize it. He could understand cerebrally how much energy he wasted trying to avoid it, but could not reconcile the irrational, emotional understanding of why he did.

“Look out asshole!” he thought as he swerved to avoid a van he had not seen, almost hitting it. “Damn it man, you have to be better than that. Pay attention. You see detail in everything and now you miss seeing a van in the road. What is wrong with you?” he thought.

He silently cursed himself for his stupidity and slowly got back onto the road and continued his drive. The van he almost hit slowly disappeared in his rear view mirror.

“Summer’s really over!” Skip said aloud, to no one. Steam drifted over his coffee cup, the one he got a few months ago when he took a fishing trip to Baja. While he mixed his cup with a shot of whisky, snow piled up in his front yard.

Skip took a sip and walked to the door. He opened it and felt the sting of the cold and braced himself from a sudden gust of wind. He leaned against the doorjamb and looked out at his boat. A slight coat of white rested on the seats and engine case.

“Time to winterize that engine and get the boat under tarps. It’s going to be a few months before I’ll be using it again,” Skip said to no one.

Skip walked back into the house and closed the door. Without a thought he walked into the workshop and looked at the posters on the walls. Heavily made-up women in seductive poses on snow-machines, motorcycles, and fishing boats covered the walls while tools, fishing gear and boat supplies filled the room in neat, well-organized fashion. He walked to the workbench and grabbed a small red metal box. Putting it under his arm he turned, winked at one of the poster-girls and made his way into the kitchen. He set the box down on the dining table and opened it. His weathered hands sifted through the contents and removed one small item.

“This baby sure has caught me a lot of fish.” Skip mused, “I remember when dad gave it to me.”

Skip moved his meaty forefinger over the smoothed out curve of the top of the lure and pushed back a wave of sadness and self-pity.

“Dad was a good man. Things haven’t made sense since he past” He thought.

Skip sat there for a good minute and then placed the lure back in the box and closed the top.

“I have to keep moving. Too many obligations for me to wallow,” Skip thought.

He finished the last of his whisky-laced coffee, put on his coat and made his way to his van.

Skip started the van, put it in gear and drove out of his driveway. As he rolled past his house he noticed just how decayed it had become and promised to himself to begin the refurbishing next summer.

“Always next summer,” he thought, “always next summer.”

Skip knew his promise would go unfilled but allowed himself a brief moment to believe he actually would keep it and lived in that short fantasy while he drove down the dirt road towards the main highway to town. As he pulled onto the road he saw the white snow falling onto the browns and oranges of the downed leaves. He remembered how a few weeks ago he was wading in the river, taking clients out for guided fly-fishing and then worried about the reality of the now here winter.

Skip pushed those thoughts out of his mind and turned on the radio. He moved the dial until a familiar song rang out the speakers. He listened to it and rolled along.

“It doesn’t do any good to think about dad now,” Skip thought, “He’s gone. And nothing I can do will change that. No, the best I can do now is just keep the family reputation the way he made it. I have to keep that true.”

Skip thought how those first few weeks after his father’s passing were brutal. And he then thought about how he had to find his pattern again to keep him sane and alive. "Now," Skip thought, "the only thing I have that keeps me from thinking about how hard it was without Dad is my routine, my pattern."

“Son of a bitch,” Skip yelled as the truck swerved near into his van.

Skip regained his composure and steadied the van back into its lane. The truck passed but not fast.

“Honest mistake,” Skip thought, “besides, I know that truck. Forget the guy’s name that owns it, but he must just de distracted. No one died, no damage done.”

He grinned, turned up the radio and sang along during the chorus. “Next year I’ll be in somewhere warm,” he thought, and shifted into fourth.

A clump of unwashed and uncombed black hair fell over her eyes as she looked out her window. Her lip pursed to the left and she exhaled upwards, blowing the hair out of her face temporarily. Like she had done so many times before, she slowly lifted the filter off the plastic water bottle and watched the coffee drain into it. Some of the stickers on the bottle had begun to peal off and she smoothed them down trying to eek a little more life out of the glue.

“I never did get my garden to grow like I wanted this summer, and now the snow is here. Maybe next summer I’ll really get that garden growing.” She thought.

As soon as she thought of the gardening her attention was distracted by a stack of ripped papers on the plywood shelf that doubled as a kitchen counter. She saw one paper and recognized it as an article she had written for a magazine. It was only a one hundred word column and it was from several years ago.

“When I become a famous writer I won’t have to try and get things like this published anymore,” she thought.

Then, like her attention that had been taken by the papers, she gazed out the window again as the snow fell, her attentions now fully focused on that.

Her mind quickly darted to another distraction and her focus shifted again. She watched the red squirrel run past the window, down the wooden stairs and around the corner of the run down cabin. She sighed, thinking she was grateful to see the creature but then lost the thought as so often happened to her. She quickly screwed the top on the plastic bottle that was now doubling as her coffee mug, grabbed a ring of keys, put on a greasy winter hat and walked out the door.

She walked down the stairs and onto a mud and snow covered path to a faded blue, foreign model sedan.

As she opened the door it made crunching sound, metal grinding against un-oiled metal.

“I’ll have to get to that and oil it,” she thought while settling into the driver’s seat.

Around her in the car was a disorderly mess of unopened mail, coffee stained seats, rusted tools, and dirty, unwashed clothes. The car smelled of dust, mildew, and neglect.

She smiled to herself and thought, “This car is so great” and put the key in the ignition. The engine struggled against the effort, but eventually started. It was the hard start of something mechanical that had been used hard, but neglected in maintenance.

She struggled with the clutch to engage first gear. Once in gear she began pulling out of the drive. Her mind focused on the snow falling as she pulled onto the dirt road. Outside of the car leaves of muted-yellow, brownish-gold and rust-orange flit on the sides of the road, tossed about by the wind the car made as it gained speed. The snow hit the windshield and turned to ice on the glass. She looked through the windshield and smiled, in awe of the beautiful green of the trees.

“Wait a minute,” she thought, “it’s fall. The trees aren’t green.”

She slowed the car a little and looked out again trying to see if she was seeing green. The birch and willows were faded white and burnt-red, with leaves of brown and rust.

“What is happening to me,” she thought, “is my perception really that fragile?”

Then, like she had happen so many times before, her mind jumped to a new thought and she forgot about the missed perception and askew awareness.

“I don’t know what is real and what isn’t anymore.” She thought, not with worry, rather with giddiness.

A vacant smile pursed her lips as she blew the matted mess of greasy hair from her eyes. She fumbled with the radio and turned on the local radio station, her focus on the dial. As she turned the volume she looked up and saw a van swerving in her lane. Her reaction was slow and she gasped for air and waited for the collision. Her hands tensed on the steering wheel, her shoulder muscles became locked. She lowered her head and tilted it to the left, with her teeth clenched tight. But the collision didn’t happen.

She looked up and slowed the car at the same time. Where was the van? How did it miss her? It never dawned on her that this was just one more trick of the brain, one more small chip in her failing grasp on reality. Her only conciliation to her worsening mental condition was that she wouldn’t know it was happening. She had the hardest time when her mind was in the present, the real. She didn’t understand that and had little idea of how she was perceived by those around her. She would create her own realities and live in them, without realization of the chaos and harm her decaying grasp with reality caused others.

She didn’t give the van a second thought, unscrewed her plastic bottle, took a sip of coffee, and shifted the car into third while increasing her speed.

An orange, crescent half-moon shone through the clouds. Stars glowed in the dark cold air. The birch trees stood tall, motionless in the windless night, silhouetted from the moon’s light. Dogs from the mushing kennel were barking, puncturing the silence of the northern night.

Town was sleeping now, summer since past, and all the manic activity that comes with the boreal summer long gone. Skip sat in his house watching the last of late night television, slowing sipping a bourbon and ice. He allowed the whisky to move into his thoughts, slowing the processes the day always brought.

“I know I promised I’d clean up Dad, but it is so hard since you’ve gone. I don’t have the strength anymore to do this without this,” Skip said to himself, the whisky letting him talk aloud to no one but himself.

It was a year ago his father died. Things just hadn’t seemed right since then. Sure, he had tried to get sober and he was always early when going to work. Skip would not let his drinking interfere with work. The rest of the town had no idea he was drinking this much and as long as he could control it, the town never would. He loved this town, and had too much pride to let them know he was drinking again. For all they knew he had cleaned up like he had promised his father right before he died. But at night, after the days work, he would sit in his house and indulge his addictions.

“Late night TV and bourbon,” Skip thought, “Is this what I have become?”

The ringing of the telephone startled Skip. He looked across the room to the telephone and moved toward it. Skip picked up the receiver.

“Skip? That you?”

“Who is this?” he replied.

“Skip, it’s Tom. I need you to come in early tomorrow. Any chance you can come in a half hour early tomorrow? We need to get the contracts ready for the lodge and need you to do a quick review before the guys come over to sign them.”

“Sure Tom. Seven thirty early enough?”

“That’d be great Skip. I’ll see you in the morning then?”

“Okay then, seven thirty” Skip said.

“Skip, you okay? You sound a little off tonight. Everything good?”

“It’s great Tom. I’m just unwinding after a long day. Did you hear I almost got hit today?”

“I heard. Someone driving a truck almost sideswiped you on the road this morning. Everything work out alright?”

“Oh yeah,” replied Skip, “he’s a good guy. Just had a lot on his mind I imagine. Nothing to worry or get mad about.”

“You always did have a positive outlook on things, Skip. Sorry I asked. See you in the morning,” and Tom hung up.

Skip placed the receiver back in the holder and went into the kitchen to pour him another bourbon. He thought about the near miss he had that morning, and put two ice cubes into his glass. He rubbed his eye with his left hand, leaned against the counter and drank deeply from his glass with his right.

“Tomorrow is another day.” Skip said aloud, walked into the television room, sat back down into his chair and silently fell asleep.

The beginning of winter was always an interesting time in this part of the world, and this year’s onset was no different. Throughout town people were in various levels of clothing layers, some not sure if it was time for parkas and fleece and others totally committed with layer upon layer of thick, warm clothing. Trees which a week prior held rust colored leaves now had barren branches covered in a blanket of white. Buildings had white smoke coming from chimneys and wood stove pipes. Cars covered with ice and snow moved down the roads. Social activity shifted from fishing, hiking, and boating to inside art works, carving, dinner parties and gatherings. It was time for cocooning.

Winter signaled the end of growth for the year. Animals hibernated and trees went dormant.

For him, summer was a painful five-month period he endured to get back to winter. The snows made him feel nested. Summer tourists and employees had left and town returned to the quiet he enjoyed. The turning from summer to fall and fall to winter made him panic, only to finally feel the stillness and peace winter gave him.

The year’s summer had been hard on him. The influx of summer workers, the non-stop party and the pressure he felt to be at all of them always ate away at him. He felt it was an insincere time of the year and he struggled to reconcile the temporary friendships that resulted from the transients of summer. Romantic relationships forged during summer always had a shelf life or ultimatum at summer’s end.

After four months a decision needed to be made; would they stay here and commit to the relationship or would they say, “it’s been fun, but the time has come to go south,” and leave the state.

Winter in Alaska is not easy for most people, and if they did commit, once the true winter kicked in they usually couldn’t get out fast enough. They always thought winter Alaska would be just like summer Alaska, only with snow. Soon the long, dark days would grind the newcomers and curiosity-seekers up.

He thought about all this as he sat down at the table in his home, after the long day where he almost hit someone with his truck.

“I’m not going to change it,” he thought, “so why do I struggle with this each year?”

He knew the first few days would pass by hard and he would wrestle with the change of season. It was always the same, and the recognition of the emotions he would feel over the next couple of weeks helped ease the sting the routine brought.