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Stepping outside to light up a Dunhill after coming back from dinner, the first scent to reach my nostrils was... fish. Which was ridiculous, considering the nearest body of water (a narrow, twisty creek) was nearly a half-mile away. My granny would have said that I was "probably smelling my upper lip," which didn't make any more sense then than it does now. Unless she was way more raucous than I thought... though there were times when some of her homespun comments were dodgy, at best. When something was stubbornly tight, or someone was frugal with the coins, it was/they were "tight as dick's hatband." Didn't take much imagination to figure what that was driving at. Coulda been perfume from the sushi bar, after all... but the violent storm that passed through may have dragged some ocean with it, too. Stillness... punctuated by the occasional dying drip of rain... and the call-and-response of frogs, just a few feet away. Unseen, but vociferous... surely no more than a few inches in size, but with deafening volume. But calming, nonetheless. There was a time when I didn't find it so "calming." I was at a friend's garage/party bar, and someone was passing around something for the lungs, with a bit more than what anyone was bargaining for... unless you were a horse. Instant paranoia. I wandered outside to find some sanity, and was surrounded by trees infested with the sound. Like something from an H. P. Lovecraft novel, trumpeting the arrival of ancient horror. I didn't go back there, for a while afterward. Long weekend begins, tomorrow. And the anniversary. Will I survive? Or sleep with the fishes? |
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