Miscellanea from the Lost Quarter and beyond.

Après the Deluge

They gathered for lunch as the midday heat reached its sweltering peak in a white house, one storey, surrounded by a stern wall with a large gate that opened onto a sleepy side street. The humidity was heavier than usual, clouds thick in the sky overhead as she walked from the corner where the tricycle had dropped her off. It was all instantly familiar, though it had been a decade at least since she had walked down this street. Her aunt and cousins were waiting at the gate to greet her, while her uncle stood in the doorway, a hand on the frame to steady himself.  

Inside it was as she remembered. A long room divided between sitting and dining areas, leading to a large kitchen at the back of the house. The table was filled with brimming dishes waiting for them to eat. There was fried chicken and fish, dinuguan and puto, banana fritters and lumpia, papaya and pineapple for dessert. Prepared by her aunt, no doubt under her uncle’s supervision, for since his stroke he’d been unable to work in the kitchen.   

This place felt like home as much as the one she had grown up in. She had stayed over often as a child, running about in the surrounding undeveloped lots, where there was always adventure to be found. In high school and college she and her friends would come over for lunch or to while away the afternoon when they had nothing better to do. Both schools were only a short walk way, so it was convenient, and her uncle was an excellent cook.  

As if it had been waiting for them to sit down to eat, the clouds erupted with thunder and rain, a deluge that quickly swamped the street outside. By the time they were finished and had moved to the couches in the sitting room, the water had passed through the gate and was approaching the entrance, leaving her pleasantly stranded. Her uncle told her, not for the first time, of how the surrounding area had once been swamp with a canal that had connected to the river. She had memories of walking across wooden boards that had been set out by locals to allow passage over the swampy ground. 

The land had long since been reclaimed, the swamp banished, except those days when it rained, of which there were many in these parts. The paved ground couldn’t absorb the water under even the slightest downpour and it swelled up and into the front entryway, a forgotten guest that could never be banished. The past was always like that, she supposed, never completely gone no matter how much of life one built atop it. 

She was thinking this as she and her uncle lapsed into a comfortable silence while her aunt and cousins put away the food. The rain ceased and all she could hear were the clatter of dishes from the kitchen and the rotating of the fan, trying vainly to push the heavy air around. Her eyes wandered to the windowsill and she saw a familiar line of ants steadily and inexorably marching across it. She and her cousins would spend hours trying to disrupt them, turn them from their path, but they always kept on. And evidently still did. They had been crossing that windowsill as long as it had been in existence, she was certain. 

Gradually the water began to recede as the sun came out. One of her cousins went to clear the water out of the entryway with a shovel, though she said it wasn’t necessary. She could get her shoes a little muddy. But no one would hear of it. Goodbyes took forever, as they always did, and it was already well on into the afternoon by the time she stepped outside. There were still puddles on the streets where the gutters didn’t drain, but they disappearing rapidly. She picked her way among them, thinking of different times.