Oracula

The Orugulans of Orugula were globic.

They were also prempid, and sollaried, and hintical, for it was Agratica Day. In files and ranks and columns they ascended the Mount of Erorpora, chanting the Ulularium, reciting the Palmics of Rudrik, and lifting their heads in sussura at the sheer wohina of the moment.

In short, they were having a wonderful time.

Leading the procession were the Stambids of Agra, dressed (of course) in their finest harabis, each as splendid as the other, proud as the parfits of the plain, adorned with herables and bearing the sacred glombits as offering for the Dulag, as was only fit and proper, for this was Agratica Day, the long-awaited, a special Agratica Day, one that coincided with the Esmes of Ardent, therefore most propinquitous of all days of the carolum. Small children trailed behind, memorising with their eyes for the privilege of someday becoming garrulous elders and boring their grandchilder with the tale.

At the crest of the Mount of Erorpora - Erorpora the Magnificent, Erorpora the Mother - the procession halted and began the Chant of Arrival, the Mahasussura, tentative at first, then loud and in earnest, the summoning of the Dulag.

High was Mosa, the major light, and semi-high was Musa, the minor light, when finally the Dulag appeared. The crowd sighed in satisfaction, and did ablemata to the great oracle.

The Dulag bemet them benignly, opening its enormous aldragagi in benison as it began the ritual. It regarded the Chief Stambid with its great orb.

'The witikamen brought you have?'

The Chief Stambid (his name was Leagra, nomen est omen, for leager he was, always), geruffled deeply. 'Brought we have, indeed, o hargent one.'

'And five-and-thirty cycles witanded you have, that you may know the stemma of Agra?' Leagra geruffled again.

The Dulag whippered. 'Then ready you are. What is the arambostal of the oracula? The Stambid whinnered deeply - this was the true minim.

He geruffled so deeply, so unwichsly, that the Mount of Erorpora all but geruffled with him, along with all the host of Orugula. 'O Dulag, kenter, this is the arambostal of the oracula: The ambiture of the pedestrial is orotund.' And he waited, with whisper abated.

For many minims, for as long as it took the light of Musa to reach Mosa, the Dulag was silent. The crowd was silent. The Stambid was silent, though innerly atremble - his kahsen hung in the balance.

Then the Dulag kervolved and transiculated. The crowd broke into sussuras of ulullation, but the Stambid awaited the missionation of Agra. And it came.

The Dulag spectored: 'Bewis, oh Orugulans, that the pedestrial is, indeed, orotund. The ambiance is thus confirmated. Bewis, beware, begone. Agra has spoke.'

Great was the globulation then, and great the reliving of the Stambid Leagra, who had preceded his people precociously and preconsciously.

Globic and globical was the procession back down the mountain, and great was the celebrication of the orotundity of the pedestrial.

The Orugulans of Orugula were prempid, and sollaried, and hintical, for hilarical had been their Agratica Day.

It Was a Grey and Drizzly Day...

The late-autumn leaves were dripping rainwater onto the soggy ground, and the air was chill. The leaves were just leaves – brown, yellow, a rare russet – and the rainwater was just...rainwater. Wet and cold. No symbolism involved.

The squirrels, undeterred by the wet and the chill (because this was North Carolina, and hibernation was a waste of time, it might be warm tomorrow), were romping up and down the tree trunks, which were dark against the grey day because they were, well, wet. An occasional bird (not that birds are occasional, but there were fewer of them around this time of year) chirped angrily in the branches, letting the crows know that this was its tree, bug off. A rangy black-and-white dog had slipped its leash and was inspecting the underbrush, heedless of the impatient calls of its (unseen) human companion. In short, it was November, and seekers of romaniticism should look elsewhere, such as Baltimore, because bleak though it might be, nothing in particular was going to happen. Even those crows weren't going to say anything – not 'Nevermore', not 'Bye, Bye, Buy Bonds', not even 'Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco'. They were likely to steal your lunch, though, if you left a sandwich around where they could find it.

Down in the valley, on the other side of the line of power pylons, the grass was still green and well-mown, as landscapers in this part of the world were thick on the manicured ground. For one thing, the community college system did one thing very well, and that one thing was to teach landscaping. Its graduate gardeners beautified Washington, DC, and the National Park System. A golf course in North Carolina (even a public one, with a $5 daily greens fee) was a wonder to behold. For another thing, workers from Mexico needed something to do, and a riding mower and trailer made a good investment. Self-employment avoided some of the unpleasantness of the Green Card business, as well – what Homeland Security thought about the yard business was not yet on record. As it was raining lightly – and it was not a Monday – no landscapers were to be seen (nor their leaf blowers heard) on the grassy sward, merely determined joggers, making their way damply along the ribbon of paved path near the treeline, water-bottles on hips, earbuds sparing the passerby shared musical experience, possibly painful. So the valley was not only visually sparse, but quiet, as well.

The keen observer...well, let's be clear. There were no keen observers. Most honest folk were either at work, provided they were fortunate enough to be employed in this shabby economy, or inside their dwellings, making use of artificial heat and light to avoid the dreariness outside and connect with the greater world by means of television or the internet. The lone, desultory observer, his senses dulled by boredom, lack of employment, and a recent lunch of grilled cheese and potato crisps, sat on a folding chair in his enclosed porch and surveyed the landscape with satisfaction.

'Here,' he thought to himself (he was under the impression that his thoughts were real things, and counted), 'is a piece of space/time. No cyberreality. No philosophical speculations on the metasystem. No ventures into the yetzirah or the Platonic world of the shadow-dancers. Just a piece of space/time.' This musing caused him to experience what he was thinking of (because he was being Pretentious) as a moment of existential calm.

Across the valley, he could see lights from the windows of houses. People must be home there, people must need light to see, people must be doing something. The sight reminded him of a poem by Bertholt Brecht (which made him realise that he was being Pretentious, because he was thinking of Brecht, but he completed the thought, anyway). Brecht's poem was about the way in which smoke from a chimney changed the meaning of a landscape. That wasn't symbolic, or supernatural. The old realist merely meant that people were a part of where they lived.

The lazy man decided to leave it at that. He wasn't conceited enough to think he was the only observer here – besides the possibility that the maintenance man might find it necessary to walk behind the buildings, and might notice that stray dog ($25 fines were threatened, but never enforced), there were watchers enough to share the moment with him: two noisy squirrels, a bird, dressed for the occasion, and the sleepy little mop-dog at his feet, should he care to open an eye or cock a floppy ear.

If the light across the way gave meaning to the grey landscape, so, perhaps, did the call of the crow. Was the tree holding up the crow, or the crow the tree...?

This made him think of Bishop Berkeley, so he thought he'd better quit, before he went from Pretentious to Downright Ridiculous.