Once again today it was impossible to wallow beneath the duvet. The blue sky and yellow sunshine were already appearing brightly behind the window coverings. The magic of another perfect day beaconed. Before eight o’clock this morning I was stationed in the shower and subsequently performed my customary ablutions at the bathroom counter.
It’s after noon, another refreshingly cool and brilliantly sunny late summer day. The water glistens upon the river! The fields of dry cornstalks are broad strokes of mottled brown upon the canvass. We have been blessed with fine weather for the past week – and perhaps we shall be again for the next! The hour hand of my brass carriage clock precisely approaches Roman numeral III on its white enamel face and already this is a rewarding day!
Once again today we’ve had to endure the rustling cornstalks in a cool breeze, an absolutely cloudless blue sky, a vast and distinctly perceptible horizon, diminished commercial traffic, barely traveled roadways, accommodating drivers, honking geese upon the rippled river, and the soothing burden of fresh, dry air. By all accounts this immeasurable weather is forecast to continue for the next week. This is truly the most favourable recollection I have of a so-called “Indian Summer”, a pleasantness which I particularly recall from my youth.
The concepts of infinity and eternity, no beginning and no end, are among the disturbing and illusive concepts often associated with a discussion of god or the creator of it all (including the even more toxic contemplation of who created god). Competing with these unfathomable topics are the investigations and proofs of science though I don’t believe science has yet explained the evolution of self-generation and perpetuation (or what we commonly call life). The sobering question of it all is, What came before nothing?
An intriguing account was related to me earlier this morning by a young woman (with whom I am dealing professionally) in response to my enquiry, “What’s the news?” She said she was going to travel to Belize in January for a holiday. If you, dear Reader, like I, have a moderate geographic knowledge only, it may help to recall that the former name (until 1973) was British Honduras. It is a country on the Caribbean coast of Central America; population 359,000; languages, English (official), Creole, Spanish; capital, Belmopan. Apparently, like so many other products of colonialism, Belize was “proclaimed” a British Crown Colony in 1862. Belize became an independent Commonwealth state in 1981. Guatemala, which bounds it on the west and south, has always claimed the territory on the basis of old Spanish treaties, although in 1992 it agreed to recognize the existence of Belize.
I began looking up the word Antiqua to ensure I had spelled it correctly. My spelling is not good (I respond to words more phonetically than literally). Anyway here’s what I discovered by chance:
With only a day remaining in the month of September, the weather forecast for the next week is a combination of superb and ideal – sunshine and, for a third of the time, above average temperatures. Ornamented by the honking geese and the huge flocks of them landing upon the river, plus the fully grown fields of yellow corn stalks, the environment is a spectacle of sunshine and blue sky. The deep balmy wind carries within its nutritious scope a limitless imagination.
BE IT RESOLVED: Little Red Riding Hood is a sexual myth.
FOR THE GOVERNMENT
Monologue:
There is inevitably a curious attraction to the alternative. What would we do if we had it to do all over again? The attraction no doubt springs from a moderate (though often concealed) admission of fault; namely, the recognition that there are things we could have been done differently – and, as a result (and of equal allure to the vivid imagination) things could have been different – which is to say, our shortcomings may have been avoided.
Having just arisen from an exceedingly pleasant afternoon nap – and having afterwards parked myself upon the balcony in a deck chair to absorb the inexpressibly beautiful late afternoon sunshine glancing off the dry yellow corn stalks and the blue river water rippling in the wind – I am sufficiently awakened to confront today’s monologue. By some standards, the daily production of this literary rubbish is a curious endeavour. But – in plain terms – I need it; I need to do it. It is not a habit – like brushing one’s teeth. Nor is it a romanticized deceit – like daily prayers. It does however approach the similarity of an appetite, a yearning never fulfilled though temporarily acceded or extinguished.