Just Like That

And just like that, August this year draws to an end. It is not quite the drawing-down of blinds that Owen wrote about. But it certainly feels that a drawing-down of funds, a slowly grimacing end to the high days of summer, is not far away.

August marks the end of my financial year, and its beginning. Yes, it's an unusual time to be doing such things, but if you think about it, why should you operate to the convenience of others when you don't have any dealings with them anyway?

So I watch the unusually early cold chills in a month predicted to be the hottest on record, and I think about the global future. This is the Indian Winter, before Surtur wins in the end.

Fragmentary

You might have noticed that August's posts are misbehaving. They are all over the place, and you will find me posting my usual fragment of Atlantean-Day thought soon, more than two weeks after the event and yet dated 9th August.

Yes, it is a season of fists and fellow food fulness, the gifts of the entertaining sun. My mind turns out into the living space around me, and back in upon itself. Like a man looking through the chambers of a nautilus only to find himself amongst the orbitals of an onion, I am seeing too many things and not enough.

Augusts are ever so. I have sealed and unsealed records, blog posts, golden apples and silver ones — and they were all date-stamped in Augusts past. For August is the season of breaking up the plenitude of the land and distributing it in odd ways to all the people. It is harvest, and hear I am sitting bemused in the storehouse again.

Beginnings

"In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census be taken of the entire Roman world..." So begins one of the most interesting stories ever heard, only blunted in its meaning by many centuries of repetition, of people hearing it without really listening.

It is the way I feel at the beginning of every August month.

Crossing The Bar

Something very significant is going to happen as Sunday night gives way to Monday morning in a few days' time. However, it will only be noticed by fans of certain bar charts. A long-standing spike indicating high traffic will suddenly disappear, heralding the establishment of normality in at least one way. I just thought I'd mention it. Heh.

And a happy August to all, especially the August personages out there!