Appendix
the calendar Without
The calendar used Without by Dazed and Adroit contains twelve 30-day months, called “times” in calendar usage, and a harvest festival. In leap years, the festival is six days; other years, five days. Most years, the festival occurs between Hottest and Fall; in warmer years, it occurs between Fall and Shivers. As listed, times roughly correspond to months in the Gregorian calendar, beginning with January:
Written usage → Spoken usage (long) → Spoken usage (short)
Freeze → the time of freezing → freezing
Coldest → the coldest time → [in the time] coldest
Cold → the cold time → [in the time] cold
Cool → the cool time → [in the time] cool
Warmth → the warm time → in the warmth
Heat → the hot time → in the heat
Hottest → the hottest time → at the hottest
Festival → (no long spoken usage) → at the festival
Fall → the time of falling → in the falling
Shivers → the shivering time → shivering
Fires → the time of fires → at fires
Prayers → the time of prayers → at prayers
Colder → the colder time → [in the time] colder
Written, a time takes its proper name, e.g. “last Fires.” Spoken of by itself, a time takes long usage, e.g. “it was the time of fires.” If paired with a day, a time takes short usage, e.g. “it was the fourth thought freezing.” If a time or a day in a prior year is being specified, usage may be modified, e.g. “it was the last shivering time” or “it was the last labor at the next-to-last fires.” In the cases of Coldest, Cold, Cool, and Colder, if the day of a time in a previous year is specified, the words “in the time” are added and suitably modified, e.g. “the third touching in the last time coldest.”
Times are divided into five 6-day weeks called “cycles.” (Without, a “cycle” does not denote what it denotes Within – see the glossary.) Ordinal numbers specify a time’s cycles: first, second, third, fourth, and last. Days are named for activities in which, by prescription, all Dazed participate. Adroit still use the names, but few do the activities.
The days of a cycle are named:
First usage → Second usage
Sing → the song
Study → the study
Work → the labor
Speak → the speech
Touch → the touching
Think → the thought
A day’s first usage is reserved for writing or when spoken without reference to a cycle or a time, e.g. “it’s Sing today.” In all other spoken contexts, the complete usage is the [first, second, third, fourth, last] [second usage of day] [short usage of time], with the time dropped when not needed and words added to the usage of the time as appropriate, for instance to specify the year. To avoid confusion, when referring to a day in the prior cycle, the word “prior,” not “last,” is added to the second usage. The preposition “on” often precedes a day’s usage, e.g. “on the prior study” or “on the first song.”
The thought at the festival, occurring only in leap years, is considered a special day. On this day, no work is done and no words are said. Adroitnesses meet but not to speak or touch, and solitary Dazed and Adroit spend the day in silence with a friend.
Dazed and Adroit do not agree on which time of the year is the first, and there is no commonly accepted numbering of years. They keep personal tallies, starting with the day they came Without, which include their number of years in usages for times.
Written: [1st, 2nd, etc.] [written usage of month] [1st, 2nd, etc.] [first usage of day]
For example: 7th Shivers 1st Sing
Spoken: the [first, etc.] [second usage of day] [short usage of time, with “my”]
For example:
the last speech my fourth shivering
the second song at my last prayers
the first thought in my second time coldest
Specifying a festival day, personal usage is my [ordinal year] [second usage of day] at the festival, e.g. “my twelfth song at the festival.” The exception is reference to the leap day. In this special case, Dazed and Adroit number only leap years, not all years. For example, for a Dazed who came Without during the year following a leap day, “my first thought at the festival” would occur the day after “my fourth touching at the festival.”