Slate slabs from the Catskills as sidewalks, dipping and tipping with the century-old maple tree roots nudging up.  Cats patrolling the rows of long-porched narrow-windowed homes, tall and snuggled against each other from the hint of the cold season.  Asters clinging to the Indian summer, vying with bright flying Halloween flags and snarling pumpins.

Birds that sound like kittens.  The intoxicating smell of rotting leaves.  I breathe it in, filling my lungs and getting drunk on memories of homes long ago gone and love that melts when the ghosts turn sideways and disappear down the empty wet street.

Time is not real.  It is only how I feel.  Wrestling with the hysterical human game pieces.  Choosing my stories, perhaps not wisely, but with honey mead love.