The storm before the calm
A crack, a flash, the room strobes with light and something outside thumps. I sit up on the foldout bed and see the shadow of Taco do the same on his throne of an air mattress.

What the…? Is that…?

There’s the unmistakable sound of fat-bellied rain…

This is for you.

And so the mud caked you and raked you, it stuck and it clung. It formed five-pound pie plates under each foot, and you squelched and stomped, left right, left right. It weighed you down worse than a mortgage, heavier than Thor’s hammer. A carefully constructed…