I moved along my path in the brief daylight, fording the perpendicular parade of machines that has allowed us to savor our fall for so long. I rode with my lover through the cold November rain and we heard it. That night we watched each thread of rain begin to slow up and eventually drift with the wind. Later, with all the moisture encapsulated in crystal, I stood alone in the shimmering street and watched the snow devils spinning past over frozen fossils of leaves. In the morning I set out on foot into an alien landscape. Like me, the parade of machines waged a comical battle with a frictionless world at our every meeting.