Air is cool.  Ground is wet.  There is a chill in the air.  Summer is over.  Sally has been tending to the garden mortuary, re-interring the remains of the summer salad fest into the loamy natural cycle of things. She sets to her chore with a grim acceptance that this is the way it has to be. Life.  Death.  “Mufasa is gone.  Circle of Life, Simba.  Let’s get on with it!” 

Occasionally she looks at me in the same way.  Like I am compost-in-waiting.  It makes me nervous.  I have taken to hiding the shovels.

Don’t get me wrong.  Sal isn’t going to kill me.  I know that.  She loves me.  I am sure.  Mostly.  Pretty sure, anyway.  It is just that she is a realist.  Practical to a fault.  And, should I falter, she just may have to put me humanely out of my misery and bury me.    No point in hesitating unnecessarily when the time comes, either.  She wouldn’t drag it out.  (I hope she’ll check for a pulse?). “Let’s get ér done!” She’d say, and I would be worm food still warm.  That is the way it is and I can accept it.

But I wish she’d stop following me around with that same look on her face she has when dispatching the remains of the plants.  It’s spooky.

It’s like Halloweén, kinda.  And I am a pumpkin.

Twenty more days of this.  Living with Morticia.  Sheesh.