Monsoon

In the first instance the guess was a spray from the upstairs window perhaps. Who was it in that room directly above, it was not clear. Maybe the Chinese Indonesian whose name would have been difficult had it been a first acquaintance. Wahyu. Nice brightly smiling chap encountered outside the door going through the mail in his striped office shirt. Finest spray the last suspicious liquid from a bottle say shaken out the window. A minute or two passed before some more descended on that same corner in the left window sash, drifting slightly to the right. Against the gray coloured shutter and the facade of the house on the corner it was visible, and nowhere else. Finest spray. In another very brief example minutes later again a few larger drops among the rest. This was not Wahyu now; it was something else. Minutes passing before faint gossamer yet again. Then the tree against the wall of the Indian’s house directly opposite gave off some droplets from the lower branches, falling onto the patchy grass beneath, with a number of leaves bending under the weight. Through the diamonds of the fencing visible. Now the question was whether the large tree on the corner might have been releasing droplets in a stir of breeze like the other smaller one and carried over. The distance was about ten metres up to the topmost branches; if that was the source the spray could only have come from the heights there, collected from rain earlier in the morning possibly. Minutes passed between episodes, five and more in the case of the longer gaps. Numerous passersby in the interim, mostly uninteresting. One older woman with a badly faded dye riding a bicycle first called a name it seemed, followed by, Zhao un. Ni hao, ni hao in a girly tone. A tall older man going on foot in the opposite direction carried a furled umbrella at chest level that like a wand appeared to give off a carnival-like tune. Dust motes mixed with faintest water droplets seemed to drift across on the air. Shortly after eight o’clock, an earlier breakfast before the window with the aircon low. Lightest gray cloud over palest blues. For the whole half hour none of the passersby could have felt the merest drop even on naked skin. Finally one old duck taking the corner from Carpmael proper and turning toward the Haig carried her white umbrella open. It would have been good to ask the lady whether it was against the sun, or the moisture in the air she was shielding herself. The first week of February was forecast to be dry and warmer after the recent afternoon bucketings the last 3 - 4 weeks. Floods in some parts and serious in neighbouring countries.
         This while reading Richard Zenith’s edition of Pessoa’s Lisbon window in The Book of Disquiet, after the poems had been read the month before. Quite uncanny much of that particular writerly consciousness delivered as if on a platter.

NB. The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa – ed. & transl. Richard Zenith

Pessoa & Co., Selected Poems - ed. & transl. Richard Zenith