I have welcomed the new month by singing loud enough to beat the Thing, which I will henceforth be calling Flaw or the Flaw and no longer capitalizing its pronouns, back to its normal amount of interference. Though I've beat it back, I still cannot banish it.

I call it "Flaw" because that is precisely what it is, a flaw in this world. I am this world, I am the demesne. There is something wrong with me, so there is something wrong with this world. The Flaw is me, regardless of how much I wish it was not. This is why I cannot banish it. I did not choose this burden.

Nonetheless...

A few days ago, I finally received some rain. Most of the time, I do appreciate the dry heat of my surrounding landscape (especially compared to humid heat) but there are times where the rough sun becomes tiresome. I do not live in a proper desert, moreso Mediterranean chaparral as I have mentioned before, and it is quite enough. The rain was a welcome relief, even if brief.

I enjoy how light and shade become equalized when the weather is overcast. It is easier on the eyes. On most days, the sun and the dry air together create such chiaroscuro. Light and shade with hard edges, the brightest brights and the darkest darks. Even so, I do not believe I'd like to live in a realm that was mostly overcast. I think the rarity of clouds is what makes them special to me.

Thinking further of clouds, at this time of year there are colossal thunderheads to the northeast. They are big enough to appear as if they are only a few leagues away, but I know that they are much farther than that. Though, truthfully, it isn't a matter of distance in this demesne. I like to pretend that it is.

The most distant clouds are only a part of the shell of the sky, and by that I mean the sky is an illusion. It is indeed a shell, that is not a metaphor. It takes time to reach it on foot, but I have walked to the edges and seen that the sky terminates in a blue wall. Here, I am an insect in a dome-shaped terrarium.

Other than that, I had a humorous blunder not long ago. To stage the scene, the desk in my study can be raised and lowered by way of a crank and pulley system. I had set a small wooden scaffold to hold a basin full of water from the Pool of Possibility apparently too close to it. I began to raise my desk, and by the time I had realized that the basin had caught the edge of it, it was too late. The basin does not have a flat bottom, so it easily tipped and clattered to the floor. The water within it went everywhere. Luckily, because it is so dry here, I needn't worry too much of mold or other unwelcome effects resulting from the lost water. I took some linens and mopped up what I could reach and left the rest to evaporation.

It is a mild inconvenience that I will have to walk back to the Pool to gather more water later.

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By Adaline Guerra