Low life | 21 July 2016

I sat down at the metal table on the shaded terrace to write a column. In front, ripening vines receding to oak-clad hills; barren mountain tops beyond. To the right, the spacious vista was abruptly curtailed by the diagonal outline of a steep hill of oak and pine which descended to a dried-up river bed at the foot of the hill on which our isolated shack was perched. Ten o’clock in the morning and it was already 34°C. The wall-of-sound crepitations of the cigales sounded louder than ever. A donkey half a mile away brayed dementedly, railing against his lot. I sipped my coffee and wondered what I should write about.

As I sipped and wondered, a cloud — huge, white, and blooming like a time-lapse photography flower — unfurled majestically above the hillcrest. Odd, I thought. The weather forecast told only of cloudless skies for the foreseeable future. The phone rang.