A few days had already passed since that beautiful Helen of Troy entered the coffee shop „Aisling” for the first time, but Alex still couldn’t forget her. He was unable to do that because of the drizzle that had fallen in the last few days, always reminding him about her. It also reminded the man about her slow footsteps that were barely touching the autumn asphalt, about the beautiful ripe chestnuts from her hair, and about her eyes - the color of the berries, in which he would have been able to lose himself forever if she had allowed him that.

He didn’t have this luck though because the one in love with Stendhal and Beauty didn’t step over the threshold of his coffee shop after this. Even so, Alex felt so in love: with the world, with that jazz that was heard at that moment in his coffee shop that was almost empty at that hour, and with that cup of coffee that he was holding with both hands to feel its aroma for longer. For the rest… he looked in the distance, sitting on the windowsill of that big window that faced the east of the city… waiting for her to come again, to make him happy with only being in his coffee shop, reading a book, or simply sipping from a delicious cup of coffee… One prepared by his hands but tasted by her lips… those red lips that lured him to kiss them because he knew that they kept the magic of the time inside them and the soul of a woman too.

„A woman like so few others in this world,” Alex caught himself whispering this and then smiled. He did that, understanding that he said such words because of the melancholy that entered his soul again. That melancholy that had the form of a bird, which was seen in his glance too, clapping its wings while the horizon, like that beautiful fairy from the tales, one that wore red clothes at that moment - the clothes of November - was waving to him, smiling, and summoning him to come to her.

And he would have gone to see her. Yes, he would have undoubtedly gone in the arms of autumn if his heart had let him do that. Yet, his heart, tightly held in the arms of the longing from his soul, didn’t let him go but kept whispering to him, „Stay here, for a little longer. Stay right here, for a few more moments because… she is coming today. Or maybe tomorrow?! Who knows?! Yet, if you stay here, she comes for sure because she has to come once the heart of the lonely romantic that lives inside you has started beating only for her.”

Yet, she didn’t come. That beautiful lady, the owner of those black stiletto shoes, didn’t come, and this turned him sad, subdued to melancholy, and to the spell of autumn that was so pleasantly spinning the red leaves in the air. Autumn that simply played with those leaves, making them dance with the wind the tango of time, a dance that lasted only until those leaves touched the earth, in the arms of which they were left to spend eternity. „Just as I would have liked to spend my life only in her arms.”

Who took him in its arms eventually had been dreaming. He kept smiling because of it and of that pleasant feeling in his heart, something he had dreamt of for his entire life. It was something he had found only in books, something he spotted only in the glances of the characters that took a shape in his head after many lines and pages read by him, and in the romantic music that he often used to listen to. A music he loved to listen to on rainy days and even on those when the sun was smiling from above, raised on that blue clear sky… as clear as the soul of an in-love woman who sees only love in front of her and runs only to hold it in her arms again.

Alex also dreamt about a reunion. He dreamt about her and, of course, also about love. Yet, that reunion was a little late, just as it was that woman, whom he had seen only once but with whom he seemed to be in love. Why did he only seem to be in love? Because he wasn’t sure if the feeling in his chest was real or if he had simply imagined it because he missed it so much. Yes, Alex missed falling in love, to love, and being loved, even if he also feared that love that had hurt him once, turning him into that lonely hopeless romantic he was at that moment. A hopeless romantic who kept sitting on the windowsill of that big window that faced the east, looking at the autumn only with the eyes of love from his soul.

It was so beautiful… that autumn. It was gorgeous, painted in different shades of dark and red, like that novel she had read many days ago, but which was still present in Alex’s soul. She was also next to him at that moment. She was also sitting on the windowsill. Not right next to him but in front of him, reading a book and smiling. Yet… Oh, God, that beautiful Helen of Troy wasn’t smiling at him, not even in his dreams.

Yet, she was smiling. This was so important to Alex at that moment: that she was there, by his side at least like a product of melancholy and longing, like a famous mural of the dreaming from his soul. She was there, right in front of him, making him so happy with her presence, filling him to the brim with that pleasant scent of ripe chestnuts that was felt from her hair. „So long and so beautiful as only a fairy from the tales can have her hair. A treasure through which I would have run my fingers in those eternal autumn evenings, both sitting on a big bear fur in front of the fireplace… we along with love.” Then, he smiled because such thoughts filled and warmed him inside, making him feel so in love.

Yes, Alexander Doyle was in love at that moment. He fell for her and for that concept of the perfect love that he had sketched in his mind and soul. It was a kind of prototype that he had often sketched in his mind, on those evenings when he was alone in the coffee shop or his apartment, looking at the fire, with a glass of red wine in his hand, and listening to the romantic music of the guitar. A prototype that he would have liked to be real but… Oh, God, he felt so difficult to believe again in the perfect love of the woman.

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He could dream about her though. He could dream about love and happiness. He could imagine her with him and that he was really happy. Yet… was he so happy at that moment? Did he feel all this or he was only imagining this? Not even Alex knew that, but he thought it was so. He had really thought that he was in love with beauty and nature, with the music of the time, and with her footsteps, those footsteps he kept hearing so pleasantly knocking on the autumn’s asphalt…

All this made him smile again because „No matter what I do, I keep thinking about her. I’m lost in my own ideas if I compare the autumn’s footsteps with her steps.” Even so, he felt so good because of that thought. A thought he was so stubborn not to get rid of ever. Why? For the simple reason that the autumn has its own perfume… the scent of that „Lady of Mystery” as Alex named her at one point, in his head only, because only a Woman surrounded by mystery can make the hopeless romantic lose his head so much that he felt unable to forget her smile, not even on those long rainy days… with drops touching his soul and also his skin…

Nevertheless, that thought of oblivion was impossible. Why exactly? Because autumn was just like that: it made people dream when they least expect this because there is nothing they can do on those rainy days. Well, there was something to do though: like staying in front of the window and looking at the dance of the raindrops on the time’s coat. People could also sip from a cup of coffee, spying on that game of fall with the tears of the sky, tears of happiness and not sadness, even if autumn seems so gloomy. Well, it can’t be different once she strips the nature of its luxury coat… leaving it so sad and lonely.

„Just as I feel sometimes when I’m lonely,” Alex caught another thought crossing his mind. „Still, loneliness has its charm though. It has it because it gives you the chance to be only with you and approach that shy kid again, that kid who waits at the gate of your soul to see him again, approach him one more time, and, taking his hand, whisper to him, „Let’s go! It’s time to play and be together!” Then, tightly holding the hand of that dreaming child that lives inside you, to run together on that wet asphalt, playing with the raindrops, with the leaves that fall from above, slowly rolling to the earth… Like those dreams that fall inside your soul, covering it with a thick warm coat and preparing it for winter… a damn cold one if she doesn’t pass by here again.”

This new thought turned the man sad again because the melancholy is like this: now you feel a dreamer, and then you fall into a bottomless chasm, feeling yourself unable to get out of there someday. Even his eyes felt wet after this thought… The same happened to the eyes of his soul while he still held the cup of coffee with both hands and deeply breathing in the scent of coffee that filled him to the brim with its aroma. „Something that spurs me so much to dream again,” Alex thought, sadly smiling after that because he couldn’t smile differently with all those weird feelings that kept dancing in his soul.

Feeling this, Alexander stuck his back against the wall that was next to the window, closed his eyes, and let the madness of time subdue him again. He allowed the madness of that beautiful autumn to control him, an autumn felt in his soul and not outside, even if those two autumns seemed not to be so different. Yet, it was a simple illusion because they were different because of a simple detail: the autumn from the man’s soul has its own aroma… It has the scent of ripe chestnuts that he felt in that stranger’s hair while they, like two children let free on the streets, were running barefoot on the wet asphalt, stepping over those fallen leaves that covered the earth with a reddish carpet. Then, feeling so deeply that pleasant thrill that entered their soul when their barefoot feet touched those leaves bathed by the tears of the time, those children burst into laughter, still holding hands and running far in the distance… toward a new horizon, toward a new beginning, toward the future, and maybe to meet another love in their way…

***

It was already dusk when Alex finally left the windowsill and went to prepare fresh coffee for the clients who started to cross the threshold of his coffee shop more often that evening. Clients that seemed to feel just like him: the melancholy of autumn and its scent. Thus, feeling so deeply that pleasant feeling, they looked for a shelter there - in the coffee shop of that hopeless romantic, where they knew they would feel so good that evening, losing themselves for a while among a book’s pages.

Yet, abandoning that place at the window, Alex lost the chance to see Her again. He didn’t see her showing up on the horizon of that autumn, just as it happened that first day. She was slowly but surely walking again on the wet asphalt, this time wearing not stiletto shoes but high-heeled boots. Even so, she was as beautiful as he had seen her that day, as though she also felt the same melancholy that entered the man’s soul that day and decided to make him happy by appearing in front of him and looking so good… undoubtedly dressed in the autumn’s coat.

That Helen of Troy was so beautiful that night. She wore high-heeled black boots, which she combined with a long dress, the color of the red leaves of autumn. On her shoulders, she wore a coat, darker than the dress… two or three shades darker actually. Around her neck, a white scarf was seen, which was perfectly combined with the brown of her hair, which seemed almost black because of the weak light of the evening.

Unlike that first day when Alex had seen her, this Helen was smiling. She smiled somehow romantically, as though she would have borrowed the melancholy from the man’s soul and stolen something from the perfection of the autumn. Actually, she had a reason to smile because, even if that evening at the beginning of November was cold, it was still pleasant and perfect for a walk.

Where was she going? It wasn’t that sure. She only knew that she didn’t intend to read a book that night because she passed by the coffee shop when she got in front of it. She didn’t even look at the big window from where two eyes… the eyes of the romantic being that lived inside Alexander… had watched the distance for days, waiting for her to come again and see her…