Cold brisk yet calm wind. Snaking its way under our countless layers. Leaves fallen. Sky bleak. Whispered promises of winter. Waiting waiting waiting for newborn snowflakes. Feeling feeling feeling the grassy bottoms of our feet turn to snow. But not yet. Autumn is now, despite inauspicious temperatures. Now, perched on a colossal boulder, brother and sister share an endowment called friendship. Called acceptance. Called childhood. Childhood: A blooming seed in the earthy ground of winter. A vaporous radiance, smoldering in youthful eyes, muted and shadowed in the eroded eyes of adulthood. Secrets buoyed by a million smiles. A million suns. A million memories. Secrets flying through the air with broken wings, as brother and sister roost amongst the rocks.

Resting side by side, I reach over. Brother and sister. Sister and brother. My brother. A bond only felt by us. A summery ocean breeze only sensed at shoreline. I touch my brother’s face. A lifetime exists in a single touch, a knowing of admiration. Ew, he says. But I ignore him. I lean in and kiss him gently on the cheek. A kiss. Brother and sister. Sister and brother. A single stroke of caring. A single stroke on the canvas of a lifetime, mapping the entwining lives we have yet to live. A single stroke, followed by double smiles and triple laughter: brother and sister and picture-taker. Capturer of this moment of brother and sister, sister and brother, doling out smiles like secrets, now hovering and floating and waiting in the cold, brisk autumn wind.