Dust and Wind

Today has been the windiest windy day of them all so far. Walking down the road, sometimes hard things fall from trees. Beware of them. Driving, it pushes even the little Volvo one way and another. It's like driving the van on the 205 bridge to Portland when it's stormy, but this is downtown. All along the horizon, a dirty color of brown rises like ugly clouds. Women look flustered as they walk in a northerly direction, hair flying out of control, messing up parts and blinding their eyes. But inside the big, comfortable library, there is little sound. A woman tells her child,

"Just pick two. Just two." It reminds me of when we used to go to the library here nine years ago, but it was a different one. We went there with the Summers, I think. Mama would say,

"Everybody pick no more than two. If you want to just get one book and bring someone else's for them, that's fine too."

I always got Hardy Boys books.

The cockroaches have all but vanished!

When Asaph arrived, one of the first things he said was,

"Where are the cockroaches?"

The truth is, it was a fine October's evening and the weather was humid when Ephraim asked the same question some days agone. The house was flooded with them, and suddenly they disappeared. How comes this? It is beyond my ken. I refrained from speaking hopefully about the situation because it seemed to good to be true, but now I do believe it is not.

The End