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Singing Bushes
Rain sporadically tapped on our fly. Its soft patter metamorphosed into an ugly ice-crystal stiletto. Sometime during the night, a full-scale squall penetrated our until then impregnable barricade of bush and whipped our tent fly with a madman's fury. When morning rolled around, we had endured the weather-god's full precipitation arsenal of rain, sleet, freezing rain, hail, and lastly, the grand finale, a whiteout blinding blizzard. I warily peered through the tent flap, and blinked wide-eyed at the winter wonderland before me. "Honey," I said (realizing we had neglected to pack our tire chains), "it looks as though we're going to be sticking close to the tent today." Sharon stuck her nose out the tent door. "Blazing blizzards Batman!" she exclaimed. "Snow!" So, I was right. It had been confirmed. The storm wasn't all for naught however - we were out of water. Sharon ventured out and collected a pot full of the white stuff and we melted it over our little Whisperlite stove. Then, bundled deep within our sleeping bags, we passed the morning sipping hot cocoa and reading tourist brochures. As well, we found that by sharing our one set of earphone plugs between the two of us we were able to listen to music on our short-wave radio at the same time. One plug didn't do much for stereophonics, but it worked to allay local shepherds' suspicions as to why the bushes happened to be singing. The wind raged into the afternoon. Our fabric home flailed like some vampire's cape on a Transylvanian clothesline. The mistral finally ripped our stakes from the frozen ground. And then things really got a-flappin'. Sharon crawled forth bravely - her hair blowing straight out at ninety degrees - and pounded the pegs home. Take that, Dracula! She reentered the tent and triumphantly shoved her one earphone in. While she was outside, I had been searching for a new station, and there was no sound. To play a trick on her, I began to bop my head to a nonexistent beat, like I was relishing some especially jazzy tune. "What's wrong with this thing?" Sharon complained, and wiggled the plug to and fro in her ear. I was unable to contain my mirth, and gave the whole sham away when I broke up at the hilarity of it! With my laughter spewing uncontrollably, I rolled on my sleeping bag, holding my sides to keep them from splitting. Sharon, realizing she had been duped, said, "Oh, you think you're so funny!" I continued laughing hysterically, rolling about the tent floor grinning stupidly while nodding my head in total agreement. No doubt, I was displaying a classic case of cabin-fever. We had only been confined to our tiny tent for nine hours, but already I had gone stir-crazy. "We have some carrots," Sharon intoned seriously. "Maybe you should go out for some fresh air and build a snowman." |
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