Aditus' prompts and circumstances - 4. Fall a brief interlude of Four Perspectives

Fall

Sam shut down the computer, leaned back in his well-worn leather chair and looked around his new study. Only the furniture was the same, everything else had changed. Instead of plain, white painted concrete and a grey carpet, there was whitewashed wood paneling, exposed wooden ceiling beams and a beautiful oak floor. The best of all, though, was the view. Through large French doors he could now watch leaves moving softly with the wind, and when he squinted his eyes, he could even see the surface of the lake glistening in the sun behind low-hanging branches.

Shoving his chair away from the desk, he grabbed his mug of ginger tea and a cookie, and walked over to open the door. Leaning with his shoulder against the frame, he breathed in the clean, crisp air of the early fall afternoon and a deep satisfaction flew through him. While he bit into the cookie he thought of how he had always wanted to live a little more outside the city, but Mark had insisted he couldn't live in the boondocks with nothing but trees and the chirping of birds. He'd need the humming of traffic with the occasional honking of car horns and his favorite coffee shop around the corner.

Thinking of Mark still caused him a tinge of pain and regret. He hadn't seen him since the day Sam had headed out of the door for his business trip and then come home to a half-empty house with Mark gone from his life. Everything they had done afterwards, selling the house, exchanging the very few things Mark had missed taking with him, they had done through Mark's attorney.

The good thing was that with the money from the sale Sam was able to afford this small house by the lake, along with something else he'd always wanted. As on cue, a cold nose pushed against his hand and when he looked down into the hazel-colored eyes of Merlin, his Collie-German Shepherd mix he'd got from the dog shelter, he knew that his life really was about changing for the better.

Sam went back to get another cookie from the plate on his desk.

Hmm...white chocolate with cranberries.

Paul had brought them the other day when they talked about his new business idea, Quick & Tasty, and Sam had agreed to write the program for it. Paul had called it bribery and he had been right; what wouldn't Sam do for another bag of those! He grinned and then shook his head at how fast Paul had caught on about his sweet tooth. He figured it out right at the beginning at that reception months ago.

Sam went out to the porch and sat down in one of his deck chairs. He sought out the one leaf that had caught his eye some days ago, with its bright yellow it had stood out among its green brothers like a flashing beacon, while he thought about how much Paul had become a dear friend in the past months.

Paul had called Sam a few weeks after they had first met, and asked him to help him with a business idea he had. Sam had immediately remembered the waiter with the amazing blue-green eyes who had served him those amazing cookies. They had started to talk and had just clicked. He learned that Paul was actually a cook and owned a catering service with his sister Maya.

One evening, when he might have had one or two beers too many, he'd told Paul about Mark and how it had hurt that Mark hadn't even wanted to talk to him on the phone after he'd moved out. Paul had said that beside Mark's undoubted cowardice, it was probably his guilty conscience that had made him behave like that.

Even if that wasn't a good excuse, at least it was an explanation Sam could live with and he had to thank Paul for that, along with helping him move and in general, cheering him up countless of times in the past weeks.

While he listened to the car coming up his driveway, a gust of wind from the lake tugged at the yellow leaf, made it twirl around its stem a few times before it was finally lifted in the air where it danced around a bit before it disappeared behind the trees.

Maybe it really was time for some more change.