She got the day wrong. It was one of her usual mistakes, getting the day wrong. A Wednes for a Tues. Or a 5th for a 6th. Sometimes it took her until afternoon to realize it. Which probably meant that it didn't make much of a difference anyway. Expect for the Mons, which you rather shouldn't expect to be Suns. Not that she disliked Mons. They formed the beginning of the week. And she liked beginnings. Liked them definitely more than endings.
The thing was, she also liked names that made sense. And wasn't it strange that six out of their seven names didn't make much of it. Like Satur. As if they forget to add an n there, trying to keep the planets out. It was only the last one, the seventh one that came with a clear picture in mind. Sun. Shamelessly leading to wrong expectations every second week, as the day didn't even try to adjust the actual weather conditions to its meaning. Sun it was, no matter the rain or snow outside, or the moon that had already entered the sky stage.
In France, the moon not only followed the sun, but also followed the Sun. La lune. Lun-di. Maybe that is where Mondays come from, she thought. Moon-days. Moody and moony a day.
But not today. Today was the one called Wednes, which came close to when, not so much in writing, but at least in pronunciation. And in topic. When, that had been the question that had made people name the days, invent the dates, the diaries, the clocks, the calendars. Those things she mostly got almost right.
Today she got the name right. Wednes. And the number. 28th. But then she had messed it all up with picking the wrong month. September instead of February. She still had no clue where that had come from. January, maybe. But September? Maybe it had been the dawn, the way it met her in the kitchen, just when the water for the tea was ready.
She counted back and forth from solstice. It didn't work. With solstice being at the end of the December, the month that had the same day and night times like February would be November, not September. Whatever, she thought, and moved to the next page, still not sure if she would leave September on top of this one, or replace it.
In the end, she corrected it. After all it was neither the seventh day today, nor luna day, but just a plain Wednesday. Which might have been the real reason for picking September - everything is possible on a Wednesday. That at least was what her friend Kaye used to say. She never understood why this wouldn't be true for all the other days of the weeks, too. But she refrained from discussing this subject, as the theory at least added some thrill to the plainness of this day in the middle of the week.
Not today, though. Today was over, and from all possible everythings not one had happened. And what is the use of a day without any events? And even more so, the use of a diary entry, she thought, and finished the last sentence of the day with a question mark. Which wasn't exactly appropriate for an ending, but then, you could always see it as a cliffhanger, she decided. For more unanswered questions, visit again tomorrow.
It was only later, when she turned out the light, that she realized that this day hadn't been about something happening, but about something not happening: She hadn't thought of Février all day.
And how good I hadn't noticed this before, she thought, cause it inevitably had made me think of all those things I don't want to think of, I don't want to think of, I don't want to think of.
Mars, Avril, Mai, she whispered to keep her mind from moving. Juin, Juillet, Août, she kept on humming, until she made it through Wednes, until it was Thurs.
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this story dates back to february 2004. for a while, it had a home in perfectland magazine. then perfectland went into hiatus. the story is still up there, though, - in fact, it is the only story that remained featured, which makes it look like someone had forgotten to evacuate it from an otherwise deserted place. and this rainy saturday felt like the perfect day to take it to a more lively place.
It's so good to find your work here, Dorothee. I enjoyed this story. Sometimes what is not is much stronger than what is. I like that point at the end.
So fraught with desperation. I like the way it unwinds at the end.
Wow, this is like a film clip of the inner workings of the mind of an idiot savant. So precise and as Cami points out, desperate. Psychological realism at its finest. Great work.
playful and sly. my fave so far.
Je suis né en Février. Je ne pense pas à Februaury aujourd'hui, jusqu'à ce que je lis cela. Je pense que c'était un mardi en Février que je suis né, même si elle mai mercredi par conséquent. Pardonnez mon français, je ne parle pas français, j'ai utilisé Google Translate. Now I have to find something else not to think of today than February - maybe "custard" - dang! I just did . . . J'ai aimé ce amusant de beaucoup, perspicace.
Merci beaucoup pour le feedback. Je suis trés heureux. Mon french still is a creative melange de l'educion et babel, alors je procedere in anglais.
thanks for the feedback and the encouragement! yes, playful. i tried to pick up on that, and now returned to another two-language text from the past, it turned into: en/core.
bon jour!
Wow. I felt frantic with the person. And I know I missed some underlying motives for this desperation. :)
Thank you so much for commenting. I thought I'd return the favor, and I'm glad I had an opportunity to read this good piece.
great story, and i love the sub-story related to its perfect publication...also, a number of commenters on here might want to join the new "Second Tongue" group ;-)
i think this story really demonstrates some of the liberties that non-native speakers often take more easily, or with a greater lightness of step.
Finnegan ~ it's true, for me as a non-native, this mixing of english and french came rather easy, and the words clicked from tune, too: 'end of février' -- the funny thing is that i first tried it with german, but it just didn't flow: 'end of februar'.
plus, i think i returned to some online-french-lessons at that time, that's how all those weekday words happened to stream through my day, bringing back more words: Lundi, Mercredi, Jeudi. Je suis. Tu es. Nous sommes. C'est un chat. C'est ca. Tout-de-suite. Alors. Bonjour.
Just found this - so enjoyed the quirky piece. The title is perfect too - La Fin de Fevrier just wouldn't have worked. But the melange is spot on throughout.