Historical Times

It has rained twenty eight straight days. No sun breaks. No moon. Just clouds and an intolerable wetness. The record for consecutive rainy days in this region is thirty three. The ten day forecast shows no relief in sight. We are living in historically wet times.

In periods such as this, in the Great Northwest, there is little else to do but think and write. Sitting in the door frame of my refrigerator room, I listen to the sound of falling rain, cradle a cup of coffee and study the muddied colors of the pear tree out back.

I watch the delivery drivers park across the alley, unloading boxes on to hand carts, then pushing them up the ramp to the door where they punch in the secret code into the keypad, then disappear into the bowels of the credit union.

I think about a post human future and salvation.

I realize I am whistling Wish You Were Here.

The rotting leaves, the rotting garden, the mold, the moss, the colorless sky, the gray puddles, the water, the wetness, the mud, the cold waterlogged wood under my bare feet, damp, soggy, saturated. Water.

I think I'd like to move, at least off the porch, to go somewhere, do something.

I think I'd like to stay put and be lazy all day.

I think about weather control.

I think about the Fourth of Julys spent at the beach, under the stars, fireworks bursting in air; about bon fires and beer; I think about sunburns and aloe vera.