The horror of autumn - Thomas Ligotti

The autumn colours are amazing this year. Many people have noticed and mentioned this. My barber speculated that the leaves stay on the trees longer, because there has been no wind nor rain. Whatever the reason, the colours of the October leaf of our calendars are echoed in nature outside. And are echoed in the wonderful stories of Thomas Ligotti:

Before there occurred anything of a truly prodigious nature, the season had manifestly erupted with some feverish intent. This, at least, was how it appeared to us, whether we happened to live in town or somewhere outside its limits.

On the calendars which hung in so many of our homes, the monthly photograph illustrated the spirit of the numbered days below it: sheaves of cornstalks standing brownish and brittle in a newly harvested field, a narrow house and wide barn in the background, a sky of empty light above, and fiery leafage frolicking about the edges of the scene.

But something dark, something abysmal always finds its way into the bland beauty of such pictures, something that usually holds itself in abeyance, some entwining presence that we always know is there.

Sources:
The Shadow at the Bottom of the World (Thomas Ligotti) - Someone put this story on-line. But please: buy the books and support this wonderful writer. I bought his books too!
All calendar pictures from our own calendars:
October 2014 - one of our calendars, unknown publisher
October 2015 - http://heye-kalender.de/der-deutsche-wald-ein-literarischer-spaziergang-2016/
November - Verjaardagskalender Drenthe - www.vandermeulen.nl