It had become autumn.
The sun still shone warmly, but its rays had lost their strength, their heat; they no longer penetrated through all the layers of clothing down to the skin.
In the mornings, he was no longer awakened by the concert of birds, which seemed to expand their repertoire daily and which he had listened to in a half-sleep until the beeping of the alarm clock finally put an end to the night.
They were not all gone, no, not all, but the orchestra had clearly shrunk.
When he left the house, the leaves rustled under his feet, a little more each day - he loved the sound since his childhood, the crackling and popping, the gentle scraping and the fluttering when the wind carried the leaves along.
They smelled golden and spicy, warm and a little salty, like some of the spices in grandmother's old spice cabinet.
She had scolded him when he had shuffled through the ankle-high leaves to play the music of the old leaves, had admonished him to lift his feet, to take care of his heels - the cobbler had been expensive back then in the village, they had had no money for that.
He smiled at the memory - she had been round and resolute, his grandmother, rarely had she held back her words and had what one called "a heart in the right place."
And she had baked the best apple pie in the world, he remembered again as he sat on the bench and lifted his face to the sun - now was the time for it, now she would be in the kitchen peeling apples, kneading the dough, asking him questions and chatting while he sat at the table chewing on his jam sandwich, when...
Yes, when she had not passed away one day in November, just like that.
They had found her in the barn, half under the cow she had just milked, the milk in the bucket still warm.
He sighed.
It had been a long time since he had been a boy, a very long time.
He no longer knew exactly which autumn it was that he was now experiencing.
It did not seem important, not as important as other things.
Soon she would come, he knew that.
He would hear her light steps, the approaching rustle of the leaves, which would end where he sat, where he sat every day, all spring long and summer, day after day, always at the same time.
He had been lucky, it had never rained in all those months, not at this time, not on this bench, where he sat and waited for her.
And she had come, every day, on Wednesday as on Sunday, always at the same time, had sat down beside him and remained silent, simply silent, for as long as it took for her to know that he had gotten used to her, that it was good, good and right.
He had sat beside her and known that it was she who sat there, not someone else, no stranger who had happened to pass by.
He had listened to her breath, calm and deep and as steady as a metronome.
When the wind was favorable, it had carried her scent to him, which was gentle and warm, light and bright like a breeze from the water and as sweet as the dried apricots of his childhood.
It mingled with the flowers close to the bench and far back in the park - they had been lily of the valley in spring and the powdery velvet of violets, which must have been very close, very close, because their scent did not carry that far, he knew.
In summer, it intertwined with the roses, which ranged from watery-rosy to the deepest black-red, she had told him.
With the buzzing of the bees came a hint of nectar, stirred up by the bright plumes of the fountain, grounded by the aromas of the rustling canopy of leaves above his head and the rough, dark wood of the tree trunk.
Now the air was different, no longer silky and floating like a delicate chiffon scarf - it seemed to crackle a little in the broken warmth of October, almost crispy from the brittle dryness of the fallen leaves.
Soon she would bring forth the blades, the narrow icy ones that cut into his face and hands - but there was still time, still...
Sometimes, when he could not sleep at night, he tried to imagine what she might look like, whether she was tall or motherly soft, whether her hair was curly or hidden under a scarf, whether her skin might be as warm as her voice.
She spoke softly and very clearly - he imagined that she could not be very young anymore, that she had seen many summers and some hardships.
She had always been kind and reserved, had sounded cheerful and sometimes only serious, a smile woven through vowels and syllables, nestled in the corners of his mouth.
It felt good to think of her, of the sound of her voice and the melody of her language, of her laughter as well as her silence.
And of the warm feeling in his belly that had come with her one day when he realized that he was waiting for her.
Just like now.
Any moment now, he would hear the soft clicking of her heels approaching, the leaves swirling closer and closer, to stop where he sat, where he always sat, the bench would creak softly under the weight that settled beside him.
He listened.
He was still listening when the park keeper began his last round.
Top Notes 
Aldehydes
Bergamot
Violet
Heart Notes 
Heliotrope
Jasmine
Lily of the valley
Orris root
Rose
Ylang-ylang
Base Notes 
Cedarwood
Musk
Oakmoss
Sandalwood
Pollita
ParfumAholic
Misca
Skydiver19
Gold
Jumi
Minigolf
Yatagan
