Autumn in Okinawa

First the wind starts to get stronger, thick and heavy; rolling through the kibi fields like a brush in tangled hair. Then you begin to notice that night time is creeping in earlier and earlier with each day. By the time dinner has been made the last crests of pink and red are falling down the horizon. You become hesistant to enter the ocean, your nipples tighten and goosegumps round up your arms as you stare at the water before  a Saturday morning swim, but you dive in anyways, and once fully submerged, with the blood circulating through your core, you wonder why you were hesitant in the first place.
Children begin coming to school with jackets tied around their waists and the amount of kyu-shoku left over increases - indication of the number of students at home resting a cold away. The large tents and colorful strings of multi-nation flags are packed safely away. With the distractions of sports festivals and track meets out of the way five day weeks once again begin to make regular appearences on the schedule.
Supermarkets flood their aisles and displays with outlandish amounts of nabe soup packages - as though to imply it would be an insult to one's family to serve anything else. Mikans are piled high in the fruit section, a molten blend of bright green and orange, their skins unnasumingly hide a sweet flesh that makes you pucker less and less as the days move on. Togan drops down to incredibly discounted price of 9 yen per 100 gram (or at least you think that is cheap, you don't often pay attention to the price of togan, not knowing what to do with one were you buy it, even at these incredible rates).
The number of moquitoes thin out and without realizing it the 6 inch, yellow-bellied spiders have dried up, left for wherever they go during the chillier months, certain to return in the spring to spin more man-sized webs betwixt trees and light-poles. So too gone are the migratory birds from Hokkaido and Russia, stopping briefly to rest as they head farther south for the winter.  Though in all earnesty, they, like autumn in Okinawa, were never really here to begin with.