My environment has drastically changed in the past week. Summer, the dry season, is over. The rain came sudden and heavy. It started as a smoky specter on the horizon and quickly became a menacing poltergeist. The soil here has no memory—unable and unwilling to address this biblical increase in moisture. Small puddles formed into ponds. As the rain continued the land separating ponds submitted to watery depths. By storms end the desert became a sea freckled with small islands. It was no flood. It was a redefinition of geography.
Only the first foot of soil, which is now a wet clay substance that will bear no burden, accepted any moisture. Vehicle travel is treacherous at best. Off road travel is nothing short of a catastrophe. The roads are not much better. Most roads in my area are nothing more than gravel carelessly laid in meandering lines. In some areas underground flows washed away loose sand creating small caverns which collapse under any significant weight. Above ground there is no warning. The only hope is to stay in 4-wheel drive and at the first sign of trouble, jam on the accelerator before forward momentum is lost. It’s not a perfect method, but perfection has no place in an environment so savage.
Paved roads are a mild degree safer. Most paved roads are no longer below sea level. Some puddles remain, but they hide deep craters. To call them potholes is an insult to their majesty. A tire on any normal vehicle will easily be swallowed. The end result of a hit at 35 mph is an ass raping jolt, causing all internal organs to compress against your lungs and then recoil sharp against the pelvis. A demonstration of the effects can easily be duplicated by taking your neighbors cat and throwing it violently against a brick wall at a distance of three paces.
It’s one hassle after another. The phone in my work area went dead due to a short somewhere on the buried line. To use a phone we had to cross fifty feet of open water to our office area. Early during the storm we had laid down wooden pallets as a bridge to the office. That washed away quickly. I have since rebuilt the bridge with some modifications and anchored it as best I could with materials on hand. Thankfully there’s a junkyard next to our tent. Most of the troubles are due to inadequate equipment and preparation. Remaining clean and dry is hopeless. At some point the mission will require crossing a distance of mud or wading through a pond. With sufficient warning we could have moved vehicles to high ground, acquired rubber boots and moved assets to more convenient locations. Last week we thought the rain would be weeks away. We’ve now had two days of rain and an even larger storm expected later this week. I fully expect my work area to be at least a couple inches below water by Saturday.
The obnoxious heat and dust of summer is much more tolerable. I never imagined I would favor those conditions. Heat you can adjust to and a mild covering of dust is much easier to clean than clay caked into every crease and fold of flesh and clothing.
My short term fate and date of return remain in limbo. I am hoping for an extension to my orders that will keep me in place until some time in February. Odd that I am trying to stay in this unreasonable desert. The simple fact is that I have little reason to return. True enough that I dearly miss the simple pleasures of the real world, such as single malt whisky, but nothing begs my presence. Whisky will be drunk without me, sadly. The real world marches on, but I find I don’t care. Fuck the real world. It’s boring and stagnant. I can carve out my own reality that is much more interesting.