The honey of summer's lagging days rolled along the breath of youth andstumbled beneath the crispness of autumn's fingertips. All that had lostidentity within the folds of laughter now reappeared at the doorway ofaccountable November. November had always seemed a gray month ofexperience, cruel and unflinching. A monotony of listless days thatoccupied the mind with fonder memories and unavoidably departed aweariness of life's common place; the transition between days of warmthand days when warmth was inconceivable to the mind.

It wasappropriate that his return came during a time which possessed neitherclosure nor beginning, a seeming parallel to their connection. Hebrought a slow-moving storm, disguised by innocence and inevitablyunfurling its gusting wrath through her once calm sea of thought. It wasodd that she could not discern the exact moment her world had lostcomposure and been replace by the inharmonic sounds of uncertainty. Theonly consistency among the reflective rubble was a dull internalizedgnawing, inverted sentiment that had accompanied their reunion. Onemorning she awoke and there it was, a numb ache similar to hunger, onethe most torrid rains could not flush from her system. It couldn't befor him. Of all things ... a man.

She wondered when she had beencareless to leave the window of her heart ajar; just enough room for histhieving figure to slide through the crevice and attach itself withparasitic annoyance. Perhaps she was envious of her friends whoselightheaded wings had not been weighted by any degree of perplexity, orperhaps not. So there she sat, gluing the puzzle pieces of her heartback together, a make-shift replica. She had always hated puzzles andtheir mathematical risks of guess and check. She was consoled only by aone-pound bag of plain milk chocolate M&Ms and the thought that thejagged edges of her first heartbreak were now fastened with a strongerpaste to ease the violent shattering of her next. They always said itwas better to have placed your heart in all its bare disclosure upon aplatter than to have never had it touch the golden rim, but she had notyet received any steadfast assurance. What did they know about this man,an oafish man ... in the bleakness of November? In one cursory motion sheset the glass jar with its auricle contents on the shelf and walked outof the room, neglecting the pounding supplications of the man encasedinside.