My little girl with auburn hair

In the corner of the world where I grew up, by the time autumn was arriving, everybody was sighing, and saying, “the season has arrived in which you don’t know what wear, with warm days and cold sunsets, and the sky craving to rain occasionally, the days get shorter and the nights longer.”

Why does it get dark so early? Why does the yard of the house need to be swept constantly? Why is the pool in the middle of the yard full of leaves and needs to be cleaned?

But, I have been loving this season since I was a teen because exactly what happens during the fall is like my feelings, there is the possibility of change in me any moment. Since I was teen there has been an autumn girl with auburn hair in my imagination. When the autumn wind began to blow, her hair rippled with it; when it was raining, I imagined my little girl’s hair, its auburn color darkened and soaked. During the day, the wind blew through her hair and in the evening the little girl grew tired of its tangles and she began to braid it.

I was in love with this fantasy friend (my little girl with auburn hair). I’m still in love with autumn after all these years. I love the sound of rustling leaves which sometimes sounds like my heart’s voice. I love the air when it gets cold suddenly, I love the autumn rains, the smell of humidity in the streets after every rain, the smell of dry leaves after rain. I love walking through the autumn rain with no umbrella.

During autumn sunsets I sometimes sit at the window of my room with a hot cup of tea and from behind the glass I watch the world outside of my room raining, and sometimes I read my favorite book, the book that I read in the autumn every year.

As the autumn starts, my walks in the sunsets begin and when the cold weather of autumn surprises me I go to the old café on the avenue, the café with wooden benches. A café that still has the essence of life, a café that does not want to be modernized. I drink a hot cup of tea and I turn on my mobile and scroll through social media and see all those who were sighing because of autumn have filled their social media profiles with beautiful pictures of autumn, and streets covered in a blanket orange. Half-shot photographs, half covered with autumn leaves, or orange leaves on an unknown girl’s skirt.

In the land I lived in before, the beginning of the year was the spring season, in the land that I live in now, the year begins with the winter season, but in the land of my mind and my heart, every year begins with autumn. Actually a few more days are left until the end of autumn, for you to see and realize the beauty of it.

How do you think of this season in your imagination?

*** This text was written by Mahdia Hossaini in autumn, you just read with a short delay.