Remembering Fall [for a contest]

When I was younger, I remember laying in my father's hammock with my brother and watching the autumn sky catch fire. I remember hot apple cider and the cinnamon light that hung in the air. I remember breathing in the earth while life blazed around us, hard at work before the Big Sleep of the winter months.1

As I got older, I remember that the colors began to fade. Gold and orange and auburn and lemon started to blur to a pedestrian brown or green. There was work to be done, I remember, and I had no time to watch the leaves turn. They became nothing more than shriveled husks I had to remember to spend a weekend raking into piles to burn.2

Then I got older still, and I remember I would spend less and less time outside as the heat left the air and that signature autumn snap permeated the atmosphere. I remember that my eyes deteriorated, and there would be days when I couldn't see color at all. I don't remember what the doctor called it.3

And now I'm as old as I'll get, and I don't go outside without thick down armor insulating my pathetic frame. I remember that I used to love autumn. I remember...4

No.5

No, I don't remember anything anymore.