floods and drought

My deadline looms at me across the narrowing gulf that separates Now from Tomorrow when it is Due. Three chapters took me two weeks. I have until tomorrow to do two more.

The dishes of the weekend tower in the kitchen.
Laundry creeps across the floors.

August winds toppled plant pots in the night, their crashes and woke me and used up the last spurt of adrenalin I had been saving. I did not get up at 5 to work.

What should I do first, I wonder. The chapter on Aids orphans, the section on floods, or the one on drought and famine? Or Governance? oh, this is no way to treat the muses.

My friend arrived in Nwarlins to start his new job. Hasn't been there since he was a student, when Katrina flushed him out. He arrived, found a place to stay, unzipped his bag. And zipped it up again. Gustav blowing him off for a little while longer.

Fires floods and droughts all over the news.

My computer screen scowls at me, stories husking, flaking in its glare. Tears and tantrums in my coffeecup.




Aaah, how delicious it is to nap in the middle of the day, curled up in the sun like a cat.