It was one of those fresh-scrubbed mornings, the kind that rises when you least expect it and dares you to wake up with it. Dares you to take your life by the ears and shake it, force it to pay attention. Arthur stood in the eye of that morning and contemplated his own significance.
Around him through the brown town core, an autumn wind was bracing just for him, a wind out of the west, spurring from the country with the smoke-cured taste of Fall. It whipped Arthur’s hair from its formal part and sent it riding around his ears. It tossed leaves in colored clouds around his feet, and sent those crusted with engine exhaust scratching and scraping down the gutters, to sink beneath the film of rainbow pools. Arthur stood quietly on the corner of that morning and knew that only he and the wind were aware of his importance.