October 2024

Digital painting of an overcast sky around nightfall, deep, dark grey clouds with jagged edges. There is one small butterfly on the left-hand side of the frame.

October 2nd

We report: all day, the wind swept the sky. There were small butterflies in front of the window, flung about like dead leaves. Somehow, they always found their way back, making small tornadoes of their own as they spun around one another. The light dims, and the wind gets louder.

Digital painting of a bright blue sky, filled with gossamer-thin cirrus at different angles, crossing one another.

October 1st

We report: while we had been fretting over the draughts and rains of September, October came in with a contradiction of a weather. It is bright blue and easy, the sunshine comes through yellowing foliage in a perfect autumn picture. The depth of the air remains humid still.

Digital painting of a sunset sky in pastel purple and yellow tones, with bright orange, wispy clouds scattered across the frame. In the centre, some geese are flying in a V formation.

October 4th

We report about the geese: it is about that time. We have been looking for them in the sky lately; it is hard to tell whether these ones are coming or going. We are a little worried to see them flying into the night like this, but our expert says they know what they are doing.

Digital painting of a dusk sky, a gradient of a blue-green to dark blue, with dark red and grey, fuzzy clouds floating.

October 3rd

We report on a green morning: it is still all shadows down here, but the tiniest shift in light buries the night for good. As it is getting colder, the smell of mornings is sharper, burns like alcohol on the first breath, and stays at the back of the throat. The stars come with.

Digital painting of an iridescent cloud in a blue sky, all colours of the rainbow in pastel tones.

October 5th

We report: this is a vision, something so fleeting and hard to see that we might as well have imagined it. We try to point at it, but the sun is too bright for anyone to want to look there. When we tell our expert about it later, they show the appropriate amount of excitement.

Digital painting of a night sky, the darkest shade of grey, filled with stars. There is a meteor falling. There is a bit of foliage peeking out from the bottom of the frame.

October 7th

We report: it is a few hours after sunset, and right after the moon too has disappeared. The sky is a velvety black, the thinnest fog creating a shimmer among the stars. With an exclamation, our expert suddenly remembers that tonight is the peak of the Draconids meteor shower.

Digital painting of a large, dark grey cloud occupying most of the sky. A small portion of it detaches underneath, like a tail that is even darker than the rest. There is rain in the distance.

October 6th

We report about this wall cloud that has been sitting low in the sky for a little while now. Everything seems to be moving around it, but it remains steady. It is dark in the early evening, and the rain is quickly coming our way. A deep rumble sounds from the belly of the beast.

Digital painting of a foggy landscape, early morning at the cusp of dusk. There are hills covered in trees, and fields, with fog moving on and between them. The scene is bathed in blue-grey tones.

October 11th

We report: it is morning, though it feels like anything but. The clouds are sliding off the sky that is sliding off the landscape that is sliding off time itself. What is ahead of us is revealed at the cost of what is behind us. We wonder how a day can be born out of the fog.

October 8th

We report: we are starting to get into these autumn storms now. They are more wind than anything else, making us feel like we are speeding through several days of weather at a time. Last night, we spent all our dreams holding onto our blankets, for fear of them flying away.

Digital painting of a fuzzy white cloud in the middle of a bright blue sky.

October 9th

We report: there was a very short time window during which the sky was more blue than grey today, and we were struck by the serenity of this fuzzy cloud. Now that the sky is overcast again, we like to think this one is still floating in the same spot, unbothered.

Digital painting of a countryside landscape: a wide, golden field of grass, with dark trees on the horizon line. The sky is a pale blue, yellowish above the field. It is almost completely clear, apart from a few wispy cirrus clouds.

October 21st

We report: the clear sky let us think that the morning would be chilly, and we bundled up accordingly. However, it is rather mild out. We keep expecting our breath to condense, but it remains unseen. Luckily, our expert made the opposite assumption; we hand them our scarf.

Digital painting of a rainy landscape: a pale grey, cloudy sky above a grassy field, with small groups of dark green trees. There is a pond reflecting the grey and green tones of the landscape.

October 10th

We report as it finally starts to rain: the surface of the pond was once a mirror, but it has dulled out under the drizzle. The white noise starts low, then fills our ears when the rain comes in earnest. We stop walking for a moment to let it drown everything else out.

Digital painting of a sunset sky, pastel blue and yellow gradient filled with soft golden clouds, and a band of grey over the horizon. There is the silhouette of a landscape, flat, with trees and a lamp post.

October 12th

We report about the way autumn has been slipping in, the increasingly long shadows and the brisk nights, and all the small details we forget year to year. Everything is damp, there is gold in the sunshine, and time seems to move faster, days stumbling upon their own feet.

Digital painting of a partly cloudy sky, all shades of grey framing a bit of blue in the background. The clouds are rimmed white with sunshine.

October 13th

We report: today, it rained five times, and the sun came out six times. Then, there was the time when the sun was out, but it was also raining. And when it was cloudy, but it was not raining. There was also a time when only a few raindrops fell. We are trying hard to keep track.

Digital painting of a cloudy sky: dark grey clouds in the top half of the frame, a lighter grey in the bottom half. The sun is clearly visible through the veil, slightly yellow. A few smaller, long, and thin clouds are scattered throughout the sky.

October 14th

We report in the early evening: the sun is fixed right there like a lighthouse, piercing through the clouds. The air pressure is stable, there is not much wind. On the horizon, the weather looks the same as it has been all afternoon. We think time might have stopped altogether.

Digital painting of a night sky mid-thunderstorm. The top half is a layer of clouds, dark blue and black, and the bottom half is pink and purple, lit with a lightning bolt sprawling the whole width of the frame.

October 15th

We report: the night sky got dark sooner than we expected tonight, but we did not think much of it. It also got brighter a lot sooner than we had expected a few hours later, when lightning struck. The flash revealed unseen oceans and mountains among the clouds.

Digital painting of some tall, voluminous clouds bubbling in sunset light, dark, earthy tones, with golden highlights. The sky behind is a dark blue-grey.

October 16th

We report as our expert is taking notes: it smells like smoke outside, and we do have to wonder whether it could be the sun burning out. Our expert reminds us about chimneys. The sunset light moves on, bronze turning to ashes. The sun is always busy elsewhere.

Digital painting of a bright blue sky full of swirly cirrus clouds.

October 17th

We report: it is the first day in a few weeks when it has not rained, at least as far as we are aware. It came close a few times, but our hand stayed dry whenever we held it out. The clouds moved along, puddles dried, and there was a quiet breeze on a quiet day.

October 18th

We report in the midst of October rain: we walk gingerly for fear of slipping. It is that type of treacherous rain that turns pavements into ice rinks. Meanwhile, the trees are still mostly full of leaves, but the sap has gotten slow to reach the tips of branches. No wind today.

Digital painting of a night sky. It is black, full of stars in the top half of the frame, and there are wispy, translucent clouds in the bottom half, doing a bad job of hiding a round moon.

October 19th

We report: the street lamps have all been turned off, but this is a bright night. The air is sharp and dank, in a way that imposes wakefulness; the smallest breeze feels glacial. The moon is strong through the clouds, and we think of high tides and tall waves in the dark.

Digital painting of a sunset sky, a washed out gradient of pale blue, with purple-grey straggly clouds. Each of them wear highlights of pink sunshine.

October 20th

We report at dusk: this is the lost and found of this day. A few stray bits of sunlight, pocket lint and the clouds that never made it to the sky. We can just about make out the words that we forgot mid-sentence, and the text we failed to send our expert earlier.

October 22nd

We report: we were not expecting the sun to work this hard today. Through rain and hail, while the clouds were but a blanket covering the whole sky, the sun remained somehow visible, invariably found a window or a door through which it could slip. We feel moved.

October 23rd

We report: our throat sometimes catches at nightfall. The emotion is tough to identify, neither sadness, relief, or joy - something muddled that comes from a hidden corner of our mind, that stirs when the light dims. In autumn, it visits us a little bit earlier every day.

Digital painting of a sunset sky, blue, with clouds of various sizes that are catching some amber light, dark grey in the shadows.

October 24th

We report: out for the sunset this evening, we crossed paths with the storm chaser that we had met during the summer. He looked a little bit out of his element, so we sat with him and told him about blue skies and slow winds. He seemed curious, if nothing else.

Digital painting of a blue sky, covered in small translucent white clouds, all stuck together.

October 25th

We report in regards to cloud news: we are witnessing a transition from clear blues to a potential full coverage. The clouds are changing shapes, becoming thicker, but at this moment, our expert's diagnosis is altocumulus stratiformis translucidus perlucidus. We agree, probably.

Digital painting of a huge dark grey cloud advancing into the sky, bringing rain with it. There is a small corner of blue remaining, and the clouds are white in that small corner.

October 26th

We report: it goes dark. It is already a little late in the afternoon, so we know that it will only get darker today. We watch the rain over there, trying to judge whether we are in its direct path. As time passes, we realise that it is useless; we will get drenched.

Digital painting of a pre-dawn sky, deep blue sky with darker, large blue clouds. There is a band of pink bleeding into purple at the bottom edge of the frame, and a black bird flying among the clouds.

October 27th

We report from tired thoughts to blurry steps, we were thrown out of bed - or torn from it, depending on the perspective. Time seems to have warped as to have pushed the sunrise much later than we were used to. Even the sun has not fully woken up yet, so why should we be up?

Digital painting of a sunset sky, mostly covered in purple grey-clouds. The edges of the clouds catch bright orange light, more vibrant as it gets closer to the horizon.

October 28th

We report: this is as much of the sunset as we can see over the roofs tonight. We could run off to try and see it more clearly, more vibrantly, but it would likely already be over by the time we would find a good spot. Besides, we feel content enough with the view at the moment.

Digital painting of a deep blue sky covered in straggly clouds of white and grey, with a play of light and shadows creating contrast.

October 29th

We report as we look straight up: the sky is all liquid today. We watch the billowing columns of clouds spin onto themselves, and the light clears itself a path in a thousand different ways. The colours of the shadows are changing, but the sky only gets bluer, brisk and intense.

Digital painting of a rainy seascape. The sky is light grey, with larger clouds coming from the left-hand side. There is rain blurring the horizon, and the surface of the ocean is also fuzzy.

October 30th

We argued about directions with our expert on the way to the beach, and we felt spiteful enough to forgo our raincoat when they told us it would rain. We are now completely sodden. We feel quite silly, but we are still working through the spite. The rain has gotten to our socks.

Digital painting of an ominous landscape at night. The sky is clouded over, a deep red that is lighter above the horizon line. There is a wide open field, a few trees in the background. A phone line runs towards the distance.

October 31st

We report at a forgotten moment of night: we cannot quite pinpoint the source of our uneasiness. We do not know why exactly we have found ourselves here so late, but our expert assures us there was a reason. They cannot, however, recall what it was. The phone line crackles.

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September 2024