September

“So we come to September.”

“Indeed. There was a rainbow in the rain-stained sky; a bulbous moon hanging above the skyline. A new semester… a whole new academic year is beginning. First-years crawl in, worm-like, and dance to the insane high piping of the Tutoric flutes. The rector, larva-like and obscene in his power and malice, once more intones terrible prophecies and dire promises from his high pulpit; and the massed ranks of pitiless professors —”

“One of those mornings, huh?”

“Well, it’s either this or bitching about the weather.”

“Try me.”

“Grey skies, gunmetal-grey, with whipping rain like bullet-hail —”

“Okay. Enough. It rains —”

“And winds whirl round with alien grace, pushing your umbrella into shapes out of geometries of outer space —”

“Okay, that’s just mocking Lovecraft. September; new academic year; a non-event for a graduate student already hardly working; move on.”