I figured I really should write, even though I am not in any classes over break. Before it gets intensely Christmas-y and I start getting gifts for anything that breathe and I "can't find time" I wrote a quick scene.

MUTT

Breathtaking and fresh. The rain tickles my nose as it drips from the café awnings above my head. Toes of my boots sodden and bleak. A little past one and I walk down the cobbled street to the market in the square.  Vendors produce covered with large red veranda umbrellas, harbored from the rain. Wanderers walk slowly, softly in the rain like me. Others dart, quick steps, navy umbrellas over heads.  Gusts of wind cup umbrellas, tossing hair.

The market closes at four on Sundays, but some vendors already close shop as the gale tosses apples from carts. I look up, tenting my eyes from the rain with one hand. Clouds, grey when I left my flat, now swirl purple. Knitting together, clouds are a tangled mess, knotted and ugly. Water comes in sheets, wind throwing it sideways, howling like a dying mutt.

I pick up speed, sliding into a seat at an outdoor café, and hide under the awning. A blast of wind assaults the furniture, bleating at potted trees. It takes less than fifteen minutes for the square to clear of all people. March, bitterly cold. Hands blotted and blue. I sit and watch as buildings, lost dogs, left over market apples take a beating from the storm. Mesmerized, memory of some teacher eons ago comes to the front of my mind, “We find beauty in the loneliest of places.”

Love from home,

The Blonde and the Bullshit