Autumn Vanishings

Autumn arrives without warning, shrouding rooftops and back gardens with its milky veil, exuding a sorrowful scent that clings to our breath. It’s the scent of wild shrubs that grew rampant in summer, now materializing into autumn’s melancholic blooms. The blooms seem sad, as if they have bloomed in spite of themselves, as if their beauty, no matter how resplendent, reflects a fate beyond their control.

Strange that this notion never occurred to us during the languid days of summer, as if it were an impossibility, as if we were careless, as if we had no understanding. As if the winter before had been so frosty that it turned our memory into a collective blank slate. As if when spring arrived, hypnotized by the beauty of trees and grass, we were more than ready to shake off winter’s burdens, our bodies warmed by the sun and the scents of fruits and blossoms. As if each time the season shifts, we become oblivious, insouciant, and easily seduced.

But now autumn has arrived, and without warning our memory has returned, reminding us of how little time we have left, and of their inevitable coming. Those intruders, they will slip into our midst to carry out their desires.

One afternoon, he opens the door to the garden and beckons the small dog inside. As the chilly mist assaults his nostrils, he starts to sneeze nonstop, just like years ago, when we used to spend hours in the attic. I am dumbstruck by this memory. Now I see them all—my mother, my grandmother, the one that birthed my grandmother, a long line of mothers—gazing at me. We lock eyes, and this thought echoes between us. Autumn has returned once more, we have very little time left, and they will come.

Each vanishing will recur, right within our midst.

The wardrobe containing Halloween costumes stands in the attic, almost touching the rafters. Clothing from many generations, in all styles and sizes, has accumulated there over the years. Every month, I go into the attic to inspect the costumes for damage. Usually, there is nothing out of the ordinary. Every year, before Halloween, I ask him, “What shall we wear this year?” In his early years, he used to be quite animated, like a wild spirit, kicking up dust on the wooden floor and making us cough and sneeze. Then and now, he could spend an entire afternoon playing dress-up with costumes pulled from the wardrobe. I would simply sit there and watch as he switched roles and personalities, as if strangers were invading his body. Over the years, I have witnessed many visitations. This very thought would give me goosebumps as I sat observing his antics, though outwardly, I would maintain an air of excitement, to appear, like him, as if I enjoyed the yearly Halloween rituals, the sweet milky taste of candy, the counting of loot in the aftermath.

“Why do I get distracted so easily,” I berate myself. Every year, with the passing of each Halloween, a costume would disappear. Yet, a couple of days later, it would reappear in the wardrobe, somehow intact, without any sign of anything amiss, as if someone had simply borrowed it, worn it for a night of revelry, then returned it without bothering to inform us.

The ultimate vanishing will happen eventually, but for now, let’s light this candle. The gigantic orange pumpkin has been hollowed out, now a menacing face with two triangular eyes, a sunken nose, and a mouth full of sharp teeth. The child trembles as he opens the skull-shaped gourd, igniting the flame atop the white candle. Each autumn, we light many candles, to illuminate faces as grotesque as these. This is how we celebrate autumn in this desolate neighborhood, where loneliness slips into our hearts, even as we sit peacefully at home, surrounded by our belongings, knowing there is no place like home.

We sit and gaze at the orange light, then he begins to sing in his childish voice:

Jack o’ lantern is the Halloween pumpkin
The Halloween pumpkin is this lantern
Light the candle and you’ll see flying witches
Light the candle and you’ll hear the whistling wind
Ooo . . . Ooo . . . Ooo . . .

While he sings, the wind outside picks up, as if footsteps are rustling through foliage. The wind chime from our deck emits a jangly moan, its metal pipes vibrating with blown air. Autumn’s carbon sky makes us shiver, deepening the chill beyond its actual temperature. Wind gusts keep swooshing in, like a legion of souls passing through the wind chime, metal pipes clanging against invisible skulls. The phantoms rush by, and I look away, letting them be.

Having no other choice, the purple sage must bloom. The wild bushes, having propagated in summer, now produce violet blooms in autumn. This is as it should be. The blooms exude a heady, spicy scent—a fearsome scent, because, though not overpowering, it lingers on, overshadowing all other scents of life.

The boy who hates autumn has copied the above paragraph from a textbook. He’s studying literature and math. He was born in the middle of autumn. Each autumn, as he turns one year older, he knows one more year is automatically subtracted from his life. Each year, when one more cheery candle is added to his birthday cake, on the other side of time another candle is removed. This candle, the one to be removed, seems as shadowy as mist.

And seen by no one except that one.

The children on their way home after school pass by rows of purple sage along the road. They pass by eyes peeking out at them from the violet blooms. The children always avert their gaze, eyes fixed straight ahead or lowered to the ground. If a corpse lay hidden among these plants, it would never be discovered. This species of sage is imbued with negative capability, its swaying stems resisting touch. And their sharp, spicy scent can obliterate any foul odor.

Occasionally, as they passed among the wild plants, one of the children would vanish. Such vanishings would happen so quickly that hardly anyone noticed. All the children would walk with their heads bent low, oblivious to those walking beside them. In fact, most of these children carried a genetic aversion to purple sage, since the plant’s violet hue would cause them immense distress if it were to enter their sight line. When this happened, they would be stricken with horrendous headaches, even to the point of madness as they were made to recall all the sorrows that have been birthed, their own, their mothers’, their mothers’ mothers’ . . . The purple sage would remind them that all the women in their genetic lineage, all of them, are born of time’s subtraction.

Occasionally the boy would arrive late at school, after dropping telltale clues along his walking route: a broken pencil, a pen with its chewed-off eraser, a crumpled piece of paper with scribbles listing birth dates, student IDs, and other scraps of personal traits, full names, and cryptic symbols. All the evidence carries his scent, all telltale clues.

One might wonder if the vanishings involve children who are stolen from their homes, ensnared in murky alleys, thrust into strangers’ clutches, stripped of their innocence, strangled of their life breath, buried beneath the earth, and over time transmuted into the heady, spicy scent of purple sage?

No one ever imagines that these vanishings take place slowly, imperceptibly, like exhaling, having one’s blood drawn, or replacing information from one’s memory with unrelated knowledge. Nothing is certain, however. If by chance the evening mist doesn’t enshroud us too thickly, doesn’t seep into one’s bones, doesn’t infect the senses, then no one will notice a thing.

From my seat, I watch him romp among the scattered costumes. I pick up a round mass, tumescent like a balloon, blue and white in color, with three holes for one’s neck and arms to slip through. A one-size-fits-all costume, made to conjure an imaginary beast, a manga character, or a spinning toy. I’ve seen this round mass leave our house each year, through the main entrance from the living room, and disappear into the mist. At first this balloon shape keeps low to the ground, then grows taller each year, its legs lengthening. I don’t want to say anything because he won’t believe me. He doesn’t know his own gaze, his own eyes gazing at the world, such brooding eyes.

Something is dwindling, like autumn days, like the late afternoon hours, like breath. All things must ebb, to let the one thing emerge in sunlight. He raises his head, cranes his neck, and as vine tendrils surge upward in tandem, his many costumes begin to cascade from his body, layer after layer. New bodies emerge from old skin. The shadow rises, expanding onto the wardrobe, crawling up the wall. Just a little more and it will puncture the ceiling, pierce through the sturdy crossbeams, and soar into the sky.

I will see a world erupting, like a colorless fireworks display.

On days like today, the road leading to the house is soaked with rain. Closing in, the mist undulates, rubs against the fence, lurks around the doorstep, swallows up the pumpkins that the boy planted last year, where spiderwebs are now torn and strips of cotton shroud no longer flutter. The flickering candles have been blown out. The wind chime has been shattered by the storm. The sage plant’s purple bloom will no longer keep us mute, but make us howl until our voices break, our chests burst open, and our vocal cords snap.

To unravel each vanishing, we must summon every sense to its fullest—scouring every minutia, every fleeting slice of life. A single fallen strand of hair, a clipped nail forgotten on the floor, each faint scent lingering on the cheek, each voice not yet recorded. We must read the silent language of growing and dying cells, glimpse the hidden self behind a passing gaze, listen for the fevered breath, the whisper of recovery. Every hour, every minute, every heartbeat and half-second—each holds a clue, a shadow, a thread pulling us closer to what was lost.

But then, to soothe our pain, no one will mention this, of course. We will continue to act as if no vanishing has ever occurred, as if the abductee still lives at home. In all the homes, among all of us.