The colour and smell of Autumn

Autumn is the season after summer and before winter. In the United States this season is also called fall. Her junior school friends used to reutter the statement everytime she fells down. May be Brian called out for the first time when they were in grade 2 but her other friends never forgot to repeat it to her . After the first time, she used to laugh with them. But oh! God, Autumn hated her name. Why did her parents named her Autumn? It didn't help her that she gets clumsy and falls down when she gets nervous and hurries towards her literature class. Or called upon podium to present a seminar. This happens every single day! . Why me God?

When she was smaller, she used to beg to God to stop tree from shredding their leaves in Autumn or make her dad to change her name to some thing else. Daisy or Lily or Rose or Dahlia or daffodil... She loved flowers. Any name would do but Autumn. But these leaves continued to fall in Autumn . Why can't it retain the leaves till winter? After all , leaves prepare food for the plant, or tree or whatever it is. Shouldn't they show some gratitude towards the leaves? Simply letting it fall off in the middle of Autumn. Neither the God, nor her dad or the trees for that matter made any change to this phenomena.

Autumn continued to get clumsy when ever she gets What was there to laugh so much? Any one can get clumsy, right? But no one , in her 14 years of life, no one she had found with their own name personified. She had thick auburn curly hair which put other girls in envy. And this clumsiness of falling down which always put herself a laughing stock to others. Her Dad always said she had auburn eyes with golden tints and she is the most beautiful woman after her mother of course . But Dads are supposed to be partial. Aren't they ?

Now that she get super nervous when Autumn arrives and in literature class. She just wanted to get out her literature class. But that was one request her mom insist her Dad while she was in the sick bed. Apparently, her mom thought that Autumn will inherit her parents' interest in poetry. Her parents fell in love in one of their poetry classes. How lucky she is, right? She hated poetry. She understood mathematical problems and data statistics over the Frost and the Brown. But she was allowed to pick any courses she want as long as she took a paper in literature till her A levels. She didn't had the heart to oppose her Dad on that matter too. Hence our Autumn continued her literature and her clumsiness into her AS levels. And Autumn hated her name and the namesake season with a vehemence.

Till she started her AS levels. Why? What happened? She met Chloe on the first day of her AS levels. Or rather it's better to say that she fell upon "The handsome " Ryan. Oh! my hero. After a shock of someone stumbling upon him, Ryan had a smug smile on him. "See , I told you . Beautiful girls always falls for me". Ryan spoke. Autumn saw the handsome face and the smile and the word "beautiful word" and she was in a hazy mood. it took her a bit of time to register that he is addressing a beautiful woman or rather a beautiful girl near him. Probably his girlfriend. She quickly came down to earth from the cloud nine. She blushed red when she recollected the remaining part of his sentence or rather the word "falls".

The girl swatted his arm and said." Stop it Ryan. You are embarrassing her ". She looked at Autumn with her curious green eyes and extended her hand. "Hello, I'm Chloe. This is my first day here. Any chance that you can direct me to the office? I have my first class in AS literature in about 10 minutes. And I have no idea where the classes are allocated to. I hate to be late to my first class. And make a bad first impression. But my brother had a different idea of reaching on time." Autumn brightened quickly upon hearing that this girl is not the girlfriend rather his sister and she introduced herself. Chloe was super happy to hear that Autumn was also heading towards the literature class. But to her disappointment, Chloe quickly said bye to her brother and grabbed on to her arms like they were chums from kindergarten onwards.

She didn't realise that she didn't once fall down as she reached the literature class. It was when the class greeted her with silence, she wondered what happened. "Arè Autumn, What happened? You reached your seat without stumbling once! " . She found her friend Nila looking at her with a teasing smile. "I told you na,you keep thinking about falling that's why you falls down so often. Now who is with you ? New friend?" Nila joined the friendship circle with Autumn and Charles in grade 4. From then they had been thick as thieves. extended her hand to Nila. "I'm Chloe. I met Autumn near the gate and now we are friends. " Chloe's smile and enthusiasm was contagious. Nila introduced herself with a similar smile and enthusiasm. " Why did you say about Autumn falling down?" Chloe asked. " Oh , that's famous. Autumn falls down all the time. " Autumn narrowed her eyes as a voice said from behind Chloe . By the time Chloe turned around, Charles jumped in and sat near Autumn, kissing her affectionately on her cheeks."Especially in the literature classroom . That's when she is super nervous about. She is doing justification to her namesake season", Charles continued with hands over her shoulders. Autumn swatted off his hands . "And the fact that Ms. Meyn being her mom's friend is determined to dig out the poetrical talents from inside Autumn" , said Nila with a giggle. Ignoring the mean look of Autumn, Charles continued seriously. "It is an unwritten ceremony that she had to fall down at least once in a day ". "Falling down? Oh then I think, she had her quota when I came in. " Chloe chimed in without missing a beat and extended her hands to Charles.

May her daily quota of falling down was over when she fell upon that handsome Ryan. And she did fell for that handsome. Now that, she don't mind falling over the handsome every day. That beautiful green eyes not unlike Chloe's sparkled when he looked at her. Or so she thought. She couldn't be sure.It was, what, hardly 3 minutes that spend with him. She smiled dreamily about meeting him again asking Charles and Chloe was getting acquainted themselves.