9:18:00 PM
Flashback for a bit.
Today's constantly falling rain invokes pretty depressing memories lingering in my head.
The freezing rain invokes some sort of melancholic feel that you can only experience sitting dead isolated in a pathetically constructed basha as the rain storms down on you like meteorites. I seriously, seriously don't know how or why I get such a feeling, but you get extremely emotionally depressed during a cold, rainy day :( As in, normally I am extraordinarily random, but if this is where my randomness points me, well, haix.
OBS has such a gloomy, moody feel to it when the rain comes down hard.
As the rain sinks, slides and soaks into your pristinely brown, mutilated PE shirt, your body freezes and your mind numbs and all you can think of is reaching shelter, reaching shelter, reaching shelter, and when you finally reach the precious protection of the OBS canteen, you sit there soaking and shivering and nothing much else. Just shivering, soaked, maybe indulging in a mental soliloquy of sorts, but basically thats it.
:(
But sometimes you aren't as fortunate. Camp 1 is a luxurious 20 star hotel compared to the other, less attractive campsite. Imagine tossing and turning in your basha half in, half out, worried about whether you'll get wet at night, worried about whether you'll roll out at night, worried about whether you'll get bitten by the ever-so-intimidating prospective sandfly invasion, worried about anything under the sun, or rather, the stars; even worried about Yishu causing you permanant sleep problems with his constant "annndrewwwww.... insecttt repellanttttt".
I passed him my attratively decorated insect repellant bottle once every half an hour until I gave up at around 1.40 in the morning when I effectively ignored his constant plea for sandfly protection and went to sleep. Or so I thought. The rain came down hard. Being half in half out of the basha, I had been half taking refuge under a spare groundsheet. I was rudely awakened by freezing cold water running down my leg, and I sat up and scrambled into the basha next to blow and looked sad :( Not my-dog-just-died so I'm brimming with ethos (or is it pathos) sadness, but the quiet, early morning melancholy, like sitting quietly together without much expression, and you enunciate a toneless, expressionless "It's raining... what's time is it?"
We, assorted 3L people mercilessly mangled among 3Q people, are united by the two seemingly unimportant, insignificant "Tock Seng" watch name. United we are as we clamber down the staircase of a hundred steps (and yes, Blow, Yishu and I counted). We reluctantly abandon our precious water bottles and other randomly miscellaneous items that we brought to our basha. With nothing but dripping wet, sandy, grimy ponchos for shelter, we make our descent down to the multi purpose hall.
The MPH was sandy, but the sandy was nothing compared to the alternative of slimy, sinking mud atop the mountain of a hundred steps. It was freezing cold, but the cold was nothing compared to the alternative of being freezing cold, freezingly wet and emotionally drained. At least the MPH provided emotional solace; an extremely minor source of heartwarming heat. I froze during the night, but survived the storm. For the day. But, honestly, I had nothing to use as a blanket. Our ponchos were drying and all, so it was like spending the night in an ice tub.
The rain pummeled us throughout the sea expedition, spared us from unsightly sunburn, but condemned us to an unforgiving frostbite of sorts. Being flatfooted, my feet were in unbearable pain from water shoes 1 and a half sizes too small, given to my by my one-year-older brother, after his own OBS expeditions. I took of my shoes in the kayak to relieve some of the pain, but what I was really afraid of was that they floated right out of the kayak, never to be seen again. But the unyieldingly brutal storm diverted our attentions to something much more important, getting to shore safely.
The rain is catharsis in nature.
After hours of suffering from the slightly acidic, dibasic droplets of precipitation, I feel extremely gloomy. And melancholic, and all. And I just feel extremely sad for no particular reason. Just sad at looking at the black sky, sad at looking at the raging thunder, and sad at squeezing out the excessive amounts of water in my PE shirt. And sad that it doesn't last.
¿Dímelo por que estas fuera de mi?
Y al mismo tiempo estas muy dentro
Dímelo sin hablar y hazme sentir todo lo que yo ya siento.
Do you know what it feels like loving someone that’s in a rush to throw you away?
Do you know, do you know, do you know, do ya?
Do you know what it feels like to be the last one to know the lock on the door has changed?
I don't love the downcast feeling.
But it's an exceptionally strange feeling.
