The Last Fly of Fall

Even though we had a good freeze not too long ago, I saw a sign of summer last night. Buzzing about in my tiny living room, a fly. I know better than to take off my sweater, summer is a long, long way off; but I dream. The fly is wearing long stockings and a muffler that flaggs behind. Gloves and earmitts and a turquoise down vest. A broad, tooth-filled grin under bug-eye goggles. It snickers and glees as it dives and turns through the wasteland and canyons of my writing desk; between the african violet and the lamp and the pencil cup. Stopping to adjust a stocking, a wee rest and OFF again zooming and gliding and barreling about.
It leaves me alone, unlike the kamakazi flies of autumn last. They would sniggle into my beard and fuzzle at the corner of my eyes, begging to be taken out and joking and jiving in a teenage gangish way, watch me, Alonso, I can make that guy slap himself. And I did slap myself and missed, nearly broke my glasses. Nearly broke the serious silence of the task at hand, thinking and abstracting in a distant region of my mind.
We had a swift and furious storm that brought leaves from another town and moved our fallen leaves nearly to Canada. Trashcans went mobile and rolled to distant blocks, helping the neighbors to get together, swapping lids and storm tales. Big, proud trees knocked down like bowling pins and out over the Pacific another storm lined up. We are nailing down the roofs and keeping one eye out for a weather change. I slept through most of it and awoke to a town with no electricity. I saw the flashes and heard the booms of electric line transformers overloaded and defeated.
The thin veneer of convenience stripped away, I saw my town differently. Teen boys in t-shirts celebrated no-school on skateboards, oblivious to the cold. Freedom can be a warm blanket and what is inconvenient to most, a source of delight to some. Without electricity, time stood still, routine broken. The best of two worlds, a return to simpler times and a new look at what we have.