Thirteen Ways of Looking at Twilight—4
You can look at not knowing what day of the week it is from various angles.
A luxury for those outside the rat race. A bane for those hanging by a thread in it. Or it could just be Harold Johnson, retired, standing at his back door watching the birds.
At first, as his attention drifted from the birds to the thought that he “wasn’t sure” what day of the week it was, he dismissed it as a mildly amusing “there goes that darn Harold again!” moment. It is always better to keep your attention on the birds—that’s just a general life principle—because with nothing else to do, Harold’s thoughts soon deteriorated from “not sure” to “no frigging clue,” and things got serious.
Of course he could have checked his phone, his calendar, called somebody, any number of things, but Harold had a stubborn streak. He sat down on the patio and first tried to walk the days back to some foothold that could help him solve the puzzle, but there was such a robotic conformity to his daily behavior, that of one day indistinct from any other, he came up empty. So he tried clearing his mind and waiting for an epiphany—breathe in, breathe out—but nothing.
He quickly discovered there would be no help from the traditional etymologies. If there was any connection between Sunday and the sun, or Monday and the moon, he was unaware of it. Likewise the provenance of the names in Scandinavian gods—Tiw, Woden, Thor—offered nothing he could relate to. Nor did the Latin versions—God was no less mysterious on Sunday than any other day. And it was asking too much of any modern person to see the kinship of Tuesday to Mars, Wednesday to Mercury, Thursday to Jupiter, Friday to Venus, or Saturday to Saturn.
He did better with his own mental image of the days as seats on a seven-day Ferris wheel. Monday—rock bottom. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday—ascending. Friday and Saturday—sharing the apex. Sunday—a precipitous drop from a serene morning, through the terrors of Sunday night, to Monday again.
He settled on the radical idea of determining what the day felt like, and matching it to the appropriate appellation.
Each day had its own distinctive mood, color, smell—and with nothing better to do, he set out to make a list.
Day of the Week—Color—Smell—Mood
Monday—Bloodblister red—Crawlspace—Nothing that makes you feel better about life is true
Tuesday—Mint green—Toothpaste—They just turned on the air conditioner in the plane
Wednesday—Fuchsia—Tea Olive—Okay for it to rain and get it over with
Thursday—Purple—The beach—Start drinking at 11:00
Friday—Cobalt blue—Gardenia—You missed your exit but the one you took turned out better
Saturday—Gold—Barbecue—Everything that makes you feel better about life is true
Sunday—Bronze>Puke green —Cinnamon>Cabbage—You’ve put everything off and the sun is going down-or-Butler Cabin—see you next year at the Master’s!
He concluded that it was one of the mid-week days; he couldn’t taste roast beef when he burped so it was unlikely it was Sunday; he hadn’t lost the will to live so it couldn’t be Monday; he didn’t feel the little scrotum tingle of a Friday, nor the sense of open space and repose of a Saturday.
Tuesday? No, the day felt too ripe for that. Maybe not ripe enough for Thursday. Plus, he didn’t remember hearing the garbage truck. He sat back and contemplated the hypothesis that it was Wednesday. Tried it on for size. Yes. Could be. Not bad, not good, just there. Had to be Wednesday. Or if not Wednesday, something very much like Wednesday, except there wasn’t anything like Wednesday but Wednesday. Anyway, if it was only like Wednesday, that meant it wasn’t Wednesday.
Okay. Wednesday it was—so he could quit worrying about it, which would be totally in character for a Wednesday.
He found himself watching the birds again.
Ah, the fowls of the air! They don’t care if it’s Wednesday—they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns—and even though it’s not Sunday, God feeds them.
Via the feeder Harold filled at 7:23 every morning.
April 3, 2022