Half an hour past noon today, half of the month of December will have slid past us, with the remaining half trying to decide whether the rest of the trip is worth the effort. If Time were a sentient creature, it would choose to bury itself beneath a thick protective layer of timelessness. Even at the risk of losing the opportunity to create the future, a sentient Time would recognize the hopelessness of trying to outlast the past. Depending on one’s perspective, that might be best for all involved: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And all those in-between moments that do not seem to fit anywhere.
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Fantasy weighs just a fraction of the weight of reality. Sometimes even less. Magic, measured not in weight but in transparency, can stand in front of a set of scales and not be seen. Nor heard, for that matter. That double negative is what differentiates children from witchcraft. Or, at least, it differentiates children from good witchcraft. Bad children embrace witchcraft, which is where Krampus comes in.
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Monday arrives, a cudgel in its left hand and an automatic pistol in its right. Strapped to its waist is a pair of wire-cutters and a set of handcuffs. Monday leans against a barber’s pole, waiting impatiently for the barber to arrive. But the barber does not come; he is sitting at home, drinking a tumbler full of steaming hot Irish coffee. After waiting a full twenty-four hours, Monday slinks off into the darkness, where Tuesday has been waiting. Tuesday, wearing a pin-stripe suit and a fedora, strides in, dragging behind him a little red wagon overloaded with tiny, live, miniature giraffes nibbling on fresh mushrooms. The smallest of the giraffes, a necklace dangling from its minute neck, looks back at where Monday had stood. Tears flow from its precious little eyes as the little creature sobs. We’ll never know what caused the tears.
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The Lumineers, one of my current favorite alternative folk bands, has a song entitled Ophelia. Several of the verses of the song begin with “Oh Ophelia…” Mi novia and I both listen to the song and laugh, because when they sing those words, it sounds like they’re singing “Oh beady eyes…” I guess you have to be there.
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My level of discomfort does not equate to the mood of my writing this morning. Ambiguous is a word that comes roaring into my head, slamming into the back of my skull with the energy of a semi-truck traveling at 80 miles per hour. Naturally, the back of my head bursts open with a spray of blood and grey matter and torn connective tissue. I have an appetite for activities, like parachuting from hot air balloons, that require more energy than my body is capable of mustering. But sleep, too, holds some appeal. Perhaps I could be taken up in a hot air balloon and, after I fall asleep, thrown out into the cold, crisp air.
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Twenty degrees Fahrenheit. That’s a touch more brisk than I like. For that reason, among others, I will not wander outside, naked and shoeless, to water the lawn or pick strawberries. A Monday gummy might be in order, right before I climb back into my warm bed. A brilliant blue sky, like the one outside my window, is not appropriate on such a cold day. Where are the thick snow clouds I associate with winter weather?
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The soft light of artificial candles does not owe its existence to paraffin.
