Thursday, February 08, 2007

SUNBATHS AND MASSAGES


It was a condemned house in the jungle.

I lived in it with a couple who were planning to get married in the ocean…

Underwater!

Both were licensed massage therapists.

I had the convenience of receiving a massage almost any time I wanted to pay for one.

My room in the big house was right next to the sunny massage room.

I was not home most of the time, so clients (strippers, teachers, lawyers, businessmen etc.) had their privacy.

The house had a tin roof.

Bread fruit would fall and make loud, percussion noises.

A big avocado tree grew outside the front door and shaded the house.

We took our showers next to the avocado tree.

I often recall those cool and soothing showers that I took after a day on the humid isle.

Since the house was not close to any roads, I also relished taking sunbaths.

Silence.

Sunbaths.

These sunbaths were almost as calming as swimming in the halcyon ocean…a mere ten minute walk from the jungle house.

One night the termites decided to come out.

Their colonizing flights started as soon as I turned on a light (which I immediately turned off).

I quickly got inside my netted tent and zipped it shut.

The frenzied flights of the flying ants ended the next morning, and it was Paradise once again.

Gone are my sunbaths, massages and ocean swims.

I now live on the dry and gritty desert.




IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

No comments: