Winter, Inflation, And The Fixture List

Tuesday it was one number. Sunday it was another. The label had not been changed, which the cashier explained with a shrug that contained more economic theory than most textbooks. Outside it is nine degrees and the heating bill has learned the same trick as the milk.

The medical was scheduled. Then it was rescheduled. Then a different journalist said something contradictory with total confidence, and the entire country recalibrated its emotional position within about four minutes, as it does every single year at exactly this point in the calendar.

It is passed clockwise. It is not stirred. It is not thanked for, because thanking means you are finished and you are not finished. In winter it holds the hands as much as it warms the throat, and the circle it makes on a cold afternoon does considerably more than any radiator.