A longa noite

No. Things hadn't been right for some time. October didn't help any. If anything it made things worse. He adjusted his black bow tie. If this were spring, he nodded slowly, quietly, emotionlessly, at his image in the mirror, then there might be a chance. But tonight all the world was burning down into ruin. There was no green spring, none of the freshness, none of the promise.
(...)
He had never liked October. Ever since he first lay in the autumn leaves before his grandmother's house many years ago and heard the wind and saw the empty trees. It has made him cry, without a reason. And a little of that sadness returned each year to him. It always went away with spring.
But, it was different tonight. There was a feeling of autumn coming to last a million years.
There would be no spring.
He had been crying quietly all evening. It did not show, not a vestige of it, on his face. It was all hidden somewhere and it wouldn't stop.

Ray Bradbury, "The October Game"

O Verão atraiçoou-nos. Todo o ano cheirou a frio e agora só porque o odor é mais intenso não se pense que está perdoado. Todo o ano o vento urrou, chiou, enregelou.
Faltam apenas seis meses para a primavera. Mas haverá esperança?