PERSISTENT TORRENTS OF "LIGHT RAIN"

He gazed somberly out past the deep veranda to the hills beyond. There was a tiger out there, and sadly no more goats. The beast had also, it was rumoured, eaten a stray tyke, or pehaps a hermit. If the latter, then the repetitive sutra chanting had not helped. He supposed he'd have to deal with it. His superiors did not like unrest, and a tiger scaring the tax base was sure to excite questions. It was still three weeks until he could expect a package from the civilized world with marmalade and tobacco, and he was running low on both of those.

The enduring rainy season had delayed the mail. It would not come upriver while there were torrents. Mayby there would also be a letter from his aunt in Devon. Penelope. And her cousin Gwendolyn. A drippy girl. Whom, he had been told, he ought to marry.

He refused to smoke the local cigars. They tasted like straw and buffalo dung, and he wasn't American, he did not have any great tolerance for that kind of thing.

He'd heard that those wild west savages prided themselves on enduring harsh circumstances, manfully boasting about it even.

Seeing as they were well-known for smoking horrible tobaccos, he believed it.

After all, they always drank boiled coffee and bourbon.
Pensively he took another sip of tea.

Sometimes, especially when it rains, I feel that my place of work is on the edge of a jungle, with nothing but tattooed headhunters in the backroom, enjoying draughts from the vats of rice wine through long reed tubes that leave the spent slush and yeast at the bottom. As the afternoon progresses, they become more and more unbearable. They remember the feats of their distant youths. The songs. The black and white movies. The great shot playing golf with departed comrades during hangovers from drinking too many bottles of Thunderbird or Lancers Sparkling Rosé on Friday Night at that hot hot hot beatnick bar in San Rafael.
With the big-breasted hipster chicks. And the poet who was just back from Korea.

That, of course, was several decades before recurring diaper rash.
Which I imagine several of them now chronically suffer.

It has rained too much in recent days.

Far out, man. Like wow.
It's totally groovy.



It is raining again.
And quite cold.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================