The air that burst around me when I stepped outside was chilly and frosty, enveloping me like a weightless form of water. Fingers that I had hidden beneath my thin sleeves tingled from the cold, and my warm breath puffed before me in small clouds. The icy temperature seemed to almost burn my nose, but it was with anticipated delight that I inhaled rapturously, relishing the feel of frosty air running across my skin.

The dark sky outside my open door was one before daybreak, empty save a few wispy clouds that swam languidly across the sky on the waves of the chilling autumn gales. I turned my head towards the east, where strong hills stood sentinel. A small haze of gold threatened to burst over summits and flood the city with the warm radiance of the sun, like a full goblet of golden ichor tipping off balance. To the west the glittering city lights winked and twinkled like stars fallen from their perches in the inky expanse of the heavens, sprinkled over the land like jewels.

I sighed and smiled skywards, my eyes drawn towards the graceful crescent moon that hung, a beautiful, snow-white arc, amidst the deep blue of breaking daylight. The stars had ended their reign of the night, relinquishing their rule over the sky, bowing to the fast-approaching regime of the sun. The stars, with their miniscule pinpoints of light, dared not to challenge the fiery strength of the undisputed god of the sky, and instead surrendered placidly. But the moon, however, was aloof to these quiet battles of supremacy; there she floated, untouched by the threat of impending dawn, as silent and serene as the surface of undisturbed water, the lone island surrounded by a slowly churning sea. Nothing could overthrow her from her throne in the sky; she would leave when she chose to, no earlier, no later.

It was with a sinking heart that I remembered that such tranquility would not last forever. It would not be long before the sun’s rays burst forth and brought to life the great movement and bustle of the hours of daylight. Soon my day would be filled with yelling and action and energy and commotion, and this peaceful Utopia would be nothing more than a fleeting dream scattered in the capricious autumn wind. But, I thought with a small glimmer of hope as I stepped back into my home, watching as the sun’s first rays broke, like fingers of gold, over the horizon, there is always tomorrow.

Yes, there is always tomorrow.