A Terrible Quiet

The air has gone dead still, quiet, and oppressive. One storm has passed and another is building, but right here, things could not be more empty. This moment is the final gasp of my summer freedom from paid work. Starting tomorrow, it all starts again: the meetings, classes, grading, schedules. My little platform of calm is beginning to tip and will soon dump me into the hopper of full-on, semi-gainful employment. Not that I am not grateful for a way to pay off all my extravagances of summer or anything. I need to work if I want to play. But this last moment of calm is both wonderful and terrifying in its imminent crack of the whip, the call to evacuate my private dreamland.