… there are no intermediary seasons. Among agronomists and politicians the mood is perversely upbeat, for they believe they can properly plan for future harvests. Calculus is less sanguine, considering weather systems to be, by their very nature, erratic. Extremely unwise to underestimate their potential to spark riots or revolutions. Homo sapiens remain fickle beasts of the belly. Hunger will always drive people to commit desperate acts.
Manichean weather. Two seasons lasting six months each. It is as if, says Calculus the current climate is computer driven. The seasons turning on binary oppositions. Scorching summers, withering winters. The separating period is short, and the change as scarily abrupt as the flick of a switch.
Season Switch…
… when the earth’s magnetic field changes polarity.
Summer == 1
Snow fast recedes. A floral renaissance in the hills and mountains, trees racing into leaf. Tortoises surface overnight. The rain is occasional and light; the heat soporific. It triggers – in the forests surrounding the château – a deafening chorus of chirping male cicadas. Trees moult, their bark cracking in the soaring temperatures.
Winter == 0
Whitening of fields overnight. The season of shivering thus announced. Hailstones the size of walnuts ricochet off terracotta roofs, a reverberating symphony for the damned. Promiscuity (social not sexual) is the order of these light shrunken days, privacy losing out to the need for human generated warmth. Rugs everywhere to barricade ourselves against the invading cold.
Saskia is a Hatha Yoga practitioner, much envied for her ability to drive off the sensation of cold from her body. She speaks of obeying Bhagavad Gita’s instructions; to ‘be beyond the pair of opposites, heat and cold.’
The house martin…
… continues to migrate. The bird returning in summer to nest under the château’s eves. But its sister species, the swallow, has ceased to fly long distances. Calculus says their winter absence was once attributed to hibernation, an erroneous belief. Then! Of course today it is an undeniable fact that swallows that they do just that.
There has been a dramatic upsurge in South Europa’s camel population, the climate suiting an animal that can withstand vast fluctuations in temperatures. These beasts of burden now roam as far north as the continent’s flat lands. They make for a cost effective mode of transport, and, as such, are much favoured by beatnik and businessperson alike.
Germaine is not permitted to roam beyond the château grounds, which means the grass is kept cropped and tidy.
– She’s a biological lawn mower, Calculus.
This is principally how Koockie persuaded Calculus to let Germaine stay. In her ‘gardening’ role she is ably assisted by nine long horned goats.
Germaine’s work load is not overly taxing, but she is ‘first reserve’ for the job of transporting the Kommune’s oak logs should Wild Rover ever conk out.