The late-autumn leaves were dripping rainwater onto the soggy ground, and the air was chill. The leaves were just leaves – brown, yellow, a rare russet – and the rainwater was just...rainwater. Wet and cold. No symbolism involved.
The squirrels, undeterred by the wet and the chill (because this was North Carolina, and hibernation was a waste of time, it might be warm tomorrow), were romping up and down the tree trunks, which were dark against the grey day because they were, well, wet. An occasional bird (not that birds are occasional, but there were fewer of them around this time of year) chirped angrily in the branches, letting the crows know that this was its tree, bug off. A rangy black-and-white dog had slipped its leash and was inspecting the underbrush, heedless of the impatient calls of its (unseen) human companion. In short, it was November, and seekers of romaniticism should look elsewhere, such as Baltimore, because bleak though it might be, nothing in particular was going to happen. Even those crows weren't going to say anything – not 'Nevermore', not 'Bye, Bye, Buy Bonds', not even 'Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco'. They were likely to steal your lunch, though, if you left a sandwich around where they could find it.
Down in the valley, on the other side of the line of power pylons, the grass was still green and well-mown, as landscapers in this part of the world were thick on the manicured ground. For one thing, the community college system did one thing very well, and that one thing was to teach landscaping. Its graduate gardeners beautified Washington, DC, and the National Park System. A golf course in North Carolina (even a public one, with a $5 daily greens fee) was a wonder to behold. For another thing, workers from Mexico needed something to do, and a riding mower and trailer made a good investment. Self-employment avoided some of the unpleasantness of the Green Card business, as well – what Homeland Security thought about the yard business was not yet on record. As it was raining lightly – and it was not a Monday – no landscapers were to be seen (nor their leaf blowers heard) on the grassy sward, merely determined joggers, making their way damply along the ribbon of paved path near the treeline, water-bottles on hips, earbuds sparing the passerby shared musical experience, possibly painful. So the valley was not only visually sparse, but quiet, as well.
The keen observer...well, let's be clear. There were no keen observers. Most honest folk were either at work, provided they were fortunate enough to be employed in this shabby economy, or inside their dwellings, making use of artificial heat and light to avoid the dreariness outside and connect with the greater world by means of television or the internet. The lone, desultory observer, his senses dulled by boredom, lack of employment, and a recent lunch of grilled cheese and potato crisps, sat on a folding chair in his enclosed porch and surveyed the landscape with satisfaction.
'Here,' he thought to himself (he was under the impression that his thoughts were real things, and counted), 'is a piece of space/time. No cyberreality. No philosophical speculations on the metasystem. No ventures into the yetzirah or the Platonic world of the shadow-dancers. Just a piece of space/time.' This musing caused him to experience what he was thinking of (because he was being Pretentious) as a moment of existential calm.
Across the valley, he could see lights from the windows of houses. People must be home there, people must need light to see, people must be doing something. The sight reminded him of a poem by Bertholt Brecht (which made him realise that he was being Pretentious, because he was thinking of Brecht, but he completed the thought, anyway). Brecht's poem was about the way in which smoke from a chimney changed the meaning of a landscape. That wasn't symbolic, or supernatural. The old realist merely meant that people were a part of where they lived.
The lazy man decided to leave it at that. He wasn't conceited enough to think he was the only observer here – besides the possibility that the maintenance man might find it necessary to walk behind the buildings, and might notice that stray dog ($25 fines were threatened, but never enforced), there were watchers enough to share the moment with him: two noisy squirrels, a bird, dressed for the occasion, and the sleepy little mop-dog at his feet, should he care to open an eye or cock a floppy ear.
If the light across the way gave meaning to the grey landscape, so, perhaps, did the call of the crow. Was the tree holding up the crow, or the crow the tree...?
This made him think of Bishop Berkeley, so he thought he'd better quit, before he went from Pretentious to Downright Ridiculous.
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