JOURNAL ENTRY NUMBER 387:
The seasons are out of alignment. The UnConvergence. The DisOrganization. The Un...Cola? Theoretical Phenomenon Name Pending. Whatever. Moving on. Regardless! Local literature suggests Spring as an idyllic period of lesser heats (hereafter defined as 22.778 degrees centigrade), gentle breezes (hereafter defined as sustained bursts of 7-10 knots. 0 garlic knots. have checked), and fresh strawberries (hereafter defined as fragaria x ananassa, a bright red fruit with lauded moisture retaining properties). Also? Picnics. 

This has been an ENTIRELY picnic-free day. The temperature readings don't fall within expected parameters. Wind is non-existent. Strawberries... remain, but have fallen from their peak performance levels and stopped being on sale a week ago so I can't afford them anymore. Conclusion: Spring is broken. 

This could signal the end of the world.

JOURNAL ENTRY NUMBER 99782655432...0:
Wait wait wait. Got ahead of myself. Meteorological Spring and Solar Spring have famously been desynched since the beginning of time. Personal Calendar remains in Time Out after it tried to eat the Nightmare Barometer. It might just be Summer. Further testing is required.

Regardless! It's too hot right now. Much too hot. Things will remain in a state of Too Hot for the next 11 days. Trust me, I've done the math. 

I'm going to have to do something about this. Where is my hacksaw?

JOURNAL ENTRY NUMBER ♪♥♥♥♪:
Alchemy, for unknown reasons, has an absurdly high success rate at conjuring or otherwise creating fire. It should therefore be a simple matter to [s]cause[/s] create a large scale bonfire in the center of Town. After sustaining a sufficiently large burn for a period of 14-48 hours, local phlogiston levels should rise to a sufficient but theoretically non-lethal amount to allow for the creation of an acceptably powerful Inversion Circle. 

With the fire thusly turned inside out it will begin consuming, rather than exuding, heat, and bring the ambient temperature of Fortitude back down to acceptably Spring levels. Plus, bonfires are amazing for picnics.

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Alternative suggestion! It might be easier, and less prone to societal backlash, to construct a series of hypermagnetic obelisks and then bury them at key leylines across Fortitude, instead. After that, all I'd need to do is conjure enough lightning to activate the hypermagnet runes, and the obelisks would cause a chain reaction drawing the poles toward them. 

After inverting magnetic north and south, I should find myself safely in late Autumn waiting for Winter instead of this frankly unacceptable Spring to Summer nonsense. Aside, why does Fall get such an austere alternate title while the rest of the seasons have to keep their dumb first names? I should ask somebody about this. Somebody who would know. I should [i]commune[/i] about this.

Minor risk of turning Fortitude upside down instead, but honestly what are the odds of that?

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The odds are not good. Trust me, I did the math.

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[i][b][u]The Quixotic Tree, Orochi[/u][/b][/i]!!! Whose mystical glass trunk is a conduit for no less than an Alien God! Whose roots sink deeper than the universe! Whose spiraling, leafless branches blot out the very stars from the sky! All hail!

By summoning and subsequently planting [i][b][u]The Quixotic Tree, Orochi[/u][/b][/i] I will be able to replicate a Theoretical Pruning Event and erase all of pan-human history from existence forever, drawing an alternate and previously deceased timeline into the resulting void to take its place. The mere idea of a Late Spring will become ridiculous! Under the despotic rule of Ivan the Terrible Who Is Also A Two Hundred Foot Tall Mammoth With Lightning Tusks For Some Reason, all shall be blanketed in an eternal blizzard! Also! People won't exist anymore! Or they will! But they'll be wolves! Who are still people! This is good! It's good, actually! Wolf people are scientifically (!!!) proven to be amazing at rock music! Which is great, because if I have to listen to Future Nostalgia one! more! time! I'm going to scream!

***

Dulcinea d'Avignon is slumped in at a table under an unopen parasol deep in the heart of downtown (Down Town? Investigate). Her ice cream has half-reconstituted back into soup, and she's fanning herself vigorously with a tattered notebook. Her spare hand is clutched around an iced coffee, as black as her very soul with lots of cream and five (5) shots of tiramisu syrup. She lifts it to touch it against her forehead and wipe away her matted black hair as often as she does to sip from it. 

She's a mess, poor girl. The dark circles still aren't gone from her eyes, despite the liberal application of circle leeches last week. She's also wearing a turtleneck, which... eesh. That thing's clinging more than a desperate ex-girlfriend. Not that she'd... know anything about that, hahahaha. She plucks at the threads uselessly, a mess of sweat and stick and non-breathing fabrics that are all in black because for some reason every time she does the laundry that's the color everything winds up bleeding into. 

"Ahahahaha, I really had you going for a second though, didn't I? It is waaaaayyyyy too hot a day for any of that stuff. Yowza."