The Irish Tales

The Year We Ran Out Of Fridays.




Monthly Meeting : 1st of March


Month Presiding : March


Yearling Presiding : 2010


Present : The Month Masters, The Calendarist, The Yearling.


The Calendarist opened the meeting with usual chant.
“Now is the time, for all time, to check our watches, our sun-dials, our clocks and egg-timers, thus to proclaim that all is well and not a second is lost !”

This was greeted with the usual nods and harumphing and coughs, until silence fell again.
And so the Calendarist proceeded to the next liturgical chant.

“Do any Months have news of any Time Machine, (here he paused for the expected and forthcoming snorts of derision)…aha ha…ha ha…which may give us pause for thought?”

Silence fell again.

Then the final ritualistic question.

“My Lord Yearling, wish you to comment ?”

The Yearling had been staring intensely at his fingernail for some time and seemed astonished to be so addressed.

“Um..who…me ?? Gosh no. Oh…wait ! I saw a very shiny glass of water today. Does that count ?”
As always, he was ignored by the meeting.

(I should mention here that the title of Yearling is purely nominal and that although in theory he has authority over the Month Masters, in practice he is largely ignored, being as he is of ephemeral stock, here this year and gone the next. Unlike the months and the days of the week. Or even the Hour Hands.)

As December, I had little to contribute to the meeting and even less interest in it. To be honest, I was utterly bored. Instead, I played with my new watch, which was powered by heart beats and consequently slowed down and sped up depending on how fast my heart pumped.

As a guide to my emotional or physical state, it was invaluable.
As a time-piece, it was useless of course. Which is why I am invariably late to such meetings.

March coughed, always a prelude to some terribly dull piece of news.

“I have been informed that GMT is late by some 0.000000012 of a chrono-second. This is apparently due to some frippery by a collection of Sloppy Seconds who were allowed out without being overseen by the duty Minute Man. He has been admonished.”

The Yearling giggled.
“Admonished, eh ? I should say so. Seconded to somewhere awful, I hope ? Haw haw! D’you see what I did there, what ? Seconded! Haw, haw !…Er…..”

He stuttered into silence as the table discreetly looked elsewhere, anywhere but at him.

Then the Calendarist sighed heavily and turned over a sheet of paper.
Immediately, the room looked up.

The Calendarist never had more than one sheet of paper.

“My Lord Yearling, Masters. I must bring to your attention a – Discrepancy.”

My watch stopped, a beat after my heart did. The last occasion on which the Calendarist had to announce a Discrepancy took place when the Julian calendar was renounced in favour of of the Gregorian.

This was unheard of, Dear Reader.

I glanced across at March. He was as pale as paper and a tic had developed on his left eyelid. As Master of The Month, any such Discrepancy would surely be held against him.

Apparently not.

The Calendarist spoke again.
“It would seem that November the Fifth will be the Last Friday of 2010.”

There was a stunned silence.
The Calendarist looked around the table. November looked horrified.

“To make myself absolutely clear; after the 5th of November, we shall have run out of Fridays. There is no doubt about this – see….”

And he laid out the Calendarist’s own Sacred Copy of the year 2010 for us all to see.
Now, the Sacred Copy is just that : sacred and infallible. As he said, there could be No Doubt.

And there was none. The other Months scrabbled at the pages and searched in vain. After November 5th, there were simply no more Fridays. Not even a blank space. Just Thursday 11th and Saturday 13th. And so on till the end of the Year.

A large and poisonous belch broke the silence.
“I say, chaps….is it lunchtime yet, what..?”
The Yearling strained, then farted and grinned inanely.
“Oooops ! Soz, my bad !”


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This is a work in progress and will be updated as and when, both here and at www.anarchangelwrites.co.uk