The month of Sundays

When the month of Sundays comes there is little you can do about it. Some try to hide under the stairs and hope it will just go away, like unwanted relatives at Christmas. Others carry on their normal lives, thinking (wrongly) that if you don't believe it is happening, then it isn't. But then there are those, world-worn and weary who know of the Month, and who face it head on, gritting their teeth and preparing for the worst.

For there is no shopping past 5pm in 'the month'. The railways are constantly under maintenance and you can never call out a plumber. The sound of church bells toll incessantly and Points of View endures endless repeats on television, with later episodes featuring commentators on the earlier ones. The world becomes tangle of overlapping ideals and repeating themes until all you can see, hear and think about is Sundays. Millions fail to pay rent, as they cannot work. But as it is Sunday no cheques can be cashed by eager landlords who are left with unbalanced books and ever mounting wads of promises and frustration. The world falls into limbo, suspended between activities, ever-waiting for life to begin again.

And yet there are those times when the birds sing, the sound of traffic vanishes from the landscape and you roll out of bed at 12 to a breezy walk alongside what remains of the countryside, that make you yearn for the month never to end. And just as the calm decends upon your soul and you crack a smile to your neighbours for the first time, it ends and everything you gained is lost to the shuffle of paper and raucous laughter of television audiences.

And so then you wait with one eye on the clock, for that bittersweet time to come once again, and throw this chaotic world out of synch just one more time.