A Field Guide to the Four Gibbous Malaises

The waning gibbous phase of the lunar cycle has, in modern clinical parlance, been flattened into a single flat descriptor: 'tired.' This is not a reckoning. This is a dismissal.

The Archive identifies four distinct malaises that manifest during the phase. The First is characterized by a heaviness in the forearms and an aversion to printed matter. The Second by a taste of metal that appears exclusively between 3 and 5 in the afternoon. The Third by an unwillingness to answer the telephone that, it must be said, occasionally persists past the lunar cycle entire. The Fourth by a sensation that one has forgotten a specific word for a specific object, typically a small household implement.

The Lunar Transit Malaise Balm (see the Treatments index) addresses all four simultaneously, though our formulators note that it works most efficiently on the Third. The Fourth, in candor, is the hardest to correct and occasionally resists the regimen entirely.

If any of the foregoing describes you, you are not alone. You are approximately thirty-four percent of the adult population. They simply do not speak of it.