I hang a Closed tag on the doorknob and switch off the lights.
Few sensations rival the quiet release of that moment.
How many months—no, years—has it been since I began working here, a hired bartender, in this place just removed from the bustle of the city?
Once, I was brimming with ambition—someday, my own bar.
Where that sentiment went, I can no longer say.
Perhaps the only habit unchanged from those days is checking the lock—twice, sometimes three times.
The morning sun cuts sharply, almost painfully, and the gazes of people beginning their day prickle.
I blend in among businesspeople hunting for breakfast, while I myself browse for beer and something to nibble on.
I’m in a good mood today. I’ll buy a little extra.
For someone immersed in alcohol by profession, this may sound unremarkable—but a drink taken free of obligation, free of pressure, is incomparable.
I turn toward a dim park, safely out of sight.
My usual spot is vacant, as it so often is.
I lower myself onto a wooden bench—hardly comfortable—and take in my surroundings.
The contrast of black is deep around me, as though this space has been neatly excised from the everyday world.
And yet, if I cast my eyes farther out, I can still glimpse everyday life, full of white.
Best of all, my only companions here are pigeons.
—Though, given a little time, infants will no doubt come to dominate this territory as well.
I finish the beer. The hiss of escaping carbonation feels as though it echoes through the entire park.
I open a packet of snacks. Two or three particularly lively pieces fail to restrain themselves and dive straight to the ground.
The pigeons approach at once, as if they’d been waiting.
Ah, I see—you like it too, I conclude, entirely on my own.
As I surrender to the sound of fallen leaves being stirred through the dry air, the black contrast suddenly deepens—three degrees stronger, at least.
The pleasant rustle of dead leaves seems to have lost its conductor entirely.
A rising sense of unease pushes me to search for the source of this dissonance.
—White. The white is gone.
Sensing a world whose color palette has been replaced in the span of a blink,
I toss the last of my beer and the remaining snacks clutched in my hand into my mouth.
It has begun.
From here on—winter.