*The Future of Wallpaper* Christopher Jug George

Because My Daughter Loves the Fall

Evening walks with my daughter have turned eerie in the autumn. The other night we became bewildered on shadowy Summit Avenue. The songbirds were singing dark, twisted songs. Crows swayed on branches in the trees prodding them on. The chorus of chirps contained no sweetness but foreboding and suggestion. They led us to a windy road on a steep hill lined with misshaped houses that grew in peculiarity the further sideways and down we went. Odd noises emanated from the twilight below, calling to us, confusion was feeling permanent when Lucy spotted a child who motioned us to follow her out of the darkness. The little girl ran through tree trunks and cast iron fences as we paced beside her. Long stem flowers whisked through her body and looked striking on her ghostly face, much like a leaf adrift in midair, not quite to the ground, on its fall.