The Murkiness of the Day

There's a murkiness to the day so far, an unresolved kind of muddy feeling unassociated with anything. It could just be the timing of the sun, which has been lagging behind the clock of late, or it could be the fitful sleep. But it's there, in the air, obvious enough that everyone must see it. I haven't been anywhere else yet, so I can't ask, but I'm not sure I would if I could. "And how's your day going?" someone will ask, probably the person bagging my groceries. "Not so well," I'd answer. "The murkiness of the day is threatening to overwhelm me." The bagger would now look at me with a puzzled expression, not sure whether I'm serious or kidding.

There are few serious conversations you can have with most of the people you encounter throughout the day. Water cooler conversation? Something topical, something lightweight, occasionally something deeper, like politics, but rarely philosophical. Waiters and waitresses, store clerks, vending machine repair persons -- these are all people who specialize in the superficial, the breezy "hot enough for ya?" kind of repartee, scarcely the kinds of people with whom you'd commiserate over man's mortality.

And yet there it is, the subject at hand, the thing that consumes our thoughts when they're not given over to the mundane. Unless, of course, everything is mundane in the end, which is a distinct possibility. But even though the subject is at hand, the end is not necessarily at hand. To the best of my knowledge, that is. But I may be forgiven if my foresight is not working as well today as it might, since it is, after all, a day of murkiness.