et in Arcadia ego
Friday, December 12th 2003, 1720 hours
Location: Arts canteen
Weather: wet
sit amid silence and dew in the Arts Canteen, in my favourite spot: at the pink tables on the third level, by the little patch of garden. There's a breeze blowing, pregnant with waterdrops, typical weather for this time of year. The last of the daylight, the grey light of December, filters through funereal clouds. Occasionally people in the corridors. A lizard scuttles. Birds scream.
It's quiet here in December, when the thronging crowds are gone; just service staff and academics and the odd person doing research. From my position at the crossing of two corridors I can see everyone who comes along, and now and then a friend or two happens by. Dawne said hello a little earlier, on her way to get a drink. But even though there's always someone about, by and large the place is empty, free from smoke and the smell of bodies and the raucous undergraduate hordes. The people who remain tend to be fairly dedicated to their work, and here and there there's a couple discussing ideas in quiet earnest tones. Compared to the general cluelessness of the thronging masses, I find I like this more.
I don't normally sit here for very long: usually the smoke and the heat and the stale-porridge humidity send me packing to the library or the Honours rooms, where conditions are more hospitable. But right now the Honours rooms are a filthy dusty mess, badly in need of some cleaning, and the library's noisy with renovations and cold in the rain. So I sit out here and find, not without surprise, this place actually somewhat congenial in the grey December weather. There's the wind and the rain and insects creaking in the thicket on the hill, soft and regular, like the breath of the jungle. And in the middle of all this, in this urban Arcadia, I, and the lizards skitter across the wet brown earth as the squirrels did in Chapel Hill.
Perhaps this December monsoon may hold answers to be found, in the wind, cold and wet with perhaps-promise.
Toss the coins.