the midas touch of early fall

It is past 6pm when you emerge from the office building, having stayed later than you intended, and now the sun is giving everything a golden look. The Midas touch of early fall.

You had heard all day how beautiful, how matchless it was outside—from the co-worker who went out at lunch to an old high school friend who went on a run along Lake Michigan on her day off and decided to post it on Facebook, this fact that she had been out when the day was perfect.

But you were at your desk all day, facing a window and imagining what it must be like outside, but inside all the same with eyes glazing over in that digital look. You were working on a spreadsheet and working toward this very moment when you would step from the building and into the Midas light.

Here it is now—you turning to gold along with the trees and the stop sign and the road home. There are no impurities in this gold, just a 24-karat gleam to the end of a day that hadn't felt significant until this moment.