It was a bitch wind, knife sharp and cutting, and it blew
bad and cold.

And they came with it, scurrying and skittering, like yellow
leaves and old newspapers, from a thousand places and from nowhere at all.

They came in their suits and their tee shirts, carrying rucksacks and briefcases and suitcases and plastic bags, muttering and humming and silent as the night.

It seemed like the bitter fall wind brought them there.

Perhaps it did.

----------

The first wind of winter blew from the North, and it had ice and rime on it's breath.

It was dirty and sharp and it cut like a razor, and if it touched you, you could wash and wash until your skin was tattered and bloodied, but you'd never be clean again.

It scattered them into the night, the quiet ones with death in their eyes.

But they left more tentatively than they had come, as if they had seen something unholy inside themselves, something they would never be able to forget.

And they left slowly, one by one, with reluctance, leaving the safety of the light for the chill uncertainties of the darkness.

It seemed like the night sucked them up, took them into it's dark heart.

It seemed like the darkness swallowed them ...

Perhaps it did.

(Neil Gaiman, "The Sandman Library II - The Doll's House", 1990)