Fall

His eyes fell upon the descending leaf as it fluttered to it's grave beneath his feet. Fall was here. He could smell it on the air, crisp and heavy. He could feel it's hands lightly touching his shoulders, the places where skin was exposed from his light clothing choices. He could sense it clutching at the caress of summer that had gripped his body these past few months. He could feel it's grip being loosened from around him, and he was afraid. His foot grazed the leaf, he heard it crunch under his stride. He took to a seat on a bench facing the play park. The mellifluous cries of the joyful children warmed his heart. He saw fathers and mothers standing watch, their protective gaze scanning the unknown faces around them. Like lions guarding a herd they waited, patience etched into every wizened line of their troubled faces. He stayed to the shadow of the mighty oak, being sure to remain half hidden in plain sight. He watched the golden curls of a passing girl reflect the light from the mid-afternoon sun. They shone orange where the sun kissed them, and blazed yellow where they hid from it's glow. Ever changing, the shimmer and flash of a liquid sunset mirrored within each lowly strand. He smiled as he was bathed in the luminosity. He saw to his right a young woman sat silently crying, staring with unfixed eyes at him. He knew she couldn't really see him, she was too engrossed in her own torturous thought. She wore dark lipstick, the race tracks from her shadowed eyes mingled in with her lip's lurid hue at the corners creating a tenebrous pool of black. He wondered, if not a little condescendingly, if perhaps when her outside began to match her standoffish appearance - she felt a little bit proud, as if she finally deserved the medals of  misery she wore on her wrists. He returned his gaze to the playing children, marveling in their delicate purity. He longed to be a child again, to be blessed with such virtue - to revel in his own naivety. To battle only the giants of the playground, to know no troubles but grazed knees and broken pinky-swears. But here he sat instead, a man. Whoever he was didn't matter. Only the location, the motive, and the time mattered now - exactly to the second. The lives of every person around him all intertwined in this poignant moment and they would never untangle. His past was of no relevance and his future did not exist. All that lay before him were open chest cavities, marrow freezing screams and slack-jawed mouths that would never smile again. And as the nameless man sighed and envied the innocence, he pushed the detonator that would destroy it.