Setting...

He stood there, empty-handed, his clothes sagging with the mist, watching the balloon meander through the sky, pitching back and forth in the turbulent bursts of wind. He turned toward the house and considered it with the fear a child has before entering a haunted mansion. Gray clouds swirled and tumbled with the wind and the naked trees in the yard creaked and swayed, making the house appear more foreboding than before. The piles of leaves he'd forgotten to bag the day before now lay scattered across the lawn, occasionally being thrusted into the air with a sudden poof of wind. The sharp breeze bit his cheeks so they turned red and his eyes watered with the deepening chill. A light flickered on in the front room and his eyes shifted to that window, unwillingly attracted to the yellow gleam. He saw a divide appear in the blinds, a space that was shortly conquered by his wife's beady eyes and her shrewd glare.