Rainfall Feedings

This is going to be an odd post. I have to say that all these people are legally imaginary but mythopoetically real. You can ask them about it if you want to, and if you are genuine enough. All events really happened, but if you are like Trivandrum (see below) and cannot leave well enough alone, you know they might not have quite happened the way they are described.

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The average rainfall in Eden is zero. There is no rain at all, just a mist which rises in the night and waters the land, disappearing in the dawn. Perhaps Eden no longer exists, in damned Mesopotamia or ruined Ceylon, and I should speak in the past tense. But even after Eden, no rain – the separated waters were a vault, an astrological crystal dome, an hieromancer's crystal sphere. But now, in this fallen world, it rains.

I am remembering one particular day. It might have been today, it might be tomorrow – it resonates of all the rainy days I've had. Consciousness was a heavy burden and perception worse. My percipience was like a leaf-blade, sharp on both edges, thin as paper and without a hilt. I cut myself badly on that deadly lamina. Everything was so acute that I almost felt my nerves telling each other that they would kill me if I hit the caffeine again within six hours.

I had several meals. The first was with the General. Nobody calls him that, of course, and a barking snort of derisory laughter would probably greet any attempt. But he looks like a general of the old and diplomatic kind, with a warmonger's taste balanced with a warrior's honour. He speaks at least four languages and teaches one, a dead waste of talent if I ever saw such. But who cares about him? Not his boss, who routinely hazards his career with a carelessly shouted phrase or two.

A shadow's heartbeat later, as we stewed over noodles and traded historical fragments, the Stork dropped in. Not the progenitive or paragenitive Stork of legend, but the tall and elegant one given to much whimsy and the occasional sly jibe at the ill-considered silliness of the time. Stork was in fine form. The friends appointed for morning-meal had decided not to show at the moment assigned. Stork preferred the company at our table, and I didn't mind.

Time passed and my irascibility was dispersed and dispensed across my long-suffering acolytes for a while.

Then was time for payback. Gnomus was always busy rubbing his diet (metaphorically, of course) in my face. So I tried behaving like him for a while. Along the way, we picked up a little audience and some victims. The god-daughter suffered silently and fairly not-so-unhappily as we plucked the balls from little boys with no common sense and set them aside on a rainy day. We were aiming for five, but the quality of the soccer fraternity produced three excellent samples.

God-daughter had experienced tragedy in Twelfth Night, which is unusual but not unheard-of. The play is second only to The Merchant of Venice in being misapprehended with consequent misfortune for all associated. We advised that tragedy should be left to goats, and left it at that. Very often, I wish that the young and prone-to-misfortune could be shielded somewhat from the consequences of others' awkward ideas. But that kind does not come out except by fasting and prayer.

Off again to chastise the acolytes. Not an excellent chastisement this time, for the second group were a hard-working bunch of toilers, affording sophisticated amusement but lacking the vim and pepper of the first (well, mostly). I spent some time in the adjoining room pretending not to eyelid a bat, and generally being odd.

And then it was lunch with excellent little slices of roast pork in rich stock and angel-hair pasta (I wanted fettucine, but no dice). There were two sub-sections of this meal: the first was with a bunch of the charming young men (who reminded me of the gang in our time) and the second was with the charming young ladies and two of the lads with the nice eyelashes. [Oh dear, I suppose at this point I must assert my heterosexuality once and for all just in case my (have I really written such an odd paragraph?) writing stirs aspersions and indignities are visited upon me.]

God-daughter was there, and also the Lioness. Romana, Trivandrum, and Angster (arbitrary names just for this particular post) were also there. Plenty of entertainingly mindless fun was had by all – games of 'confuse the compass' and 'which lad is the lady most like' were played. Sweet milky tea was imbibed while others consumed chunky chips and watched the words sail overhead. Gnomus was his usual capricious intelligent self, making copious scatological (sociological) notes in a little book. We had fun.

The sad part, of course, is that this might well have been the last hurrah. It must end soon. Perhaps it already has. It is a very fin-de-siécle feeling.

After that I and the Disciple went off to thrash the younger gentlemen at cards. Won handily. Not our finest hour, but a good time was had by all. Of course, no money exchanged hands. No hands exchanged money either.

What a day. So few of such pass our way, with equal measure of pain and pleasure and sadness and joy all rolled into a wet blanket of the kind Noah would have appreciated. I am happy for now.