JABBA THE HURRICANE

So here we all are, all 130 million or so of us living here in the big J, the entire country, all the prefectures bright red on the weather map, bright red meaning big-time torrential rains, carrying on with or lives as best we can beneath the vast rain muffin that comprises whatever number this typhoon is - already a bit early but maybe not, since it’s been a wet summer anyway hard to tell the difference but whats new, some kind of prepping for weirdness to follow.

The strange thing is, this typhoon doesn’t move -- it just sits there right on top of the country like Jabba the Hurricane, slithering wetly maybe ten feet a day toward China. It delayed the trains in Yamashina (one end of the Rashomon path) on Friday night and its still here on Sunday afternoon, will be here tomorrow and for who really knows how long thereafter, hanging around blocking the light, puffing a bit here and there, blowing some stuff around, looking into the windows like a big wet wild creature you shouldn’t have fed, now it’s gonna hang around and drench everything, bring down mountainsides, flood villages and cities, rain rain rain on everything, no exceptions.

It does produce bit of wind at times so it can earn the name Typhoon, it shows up round and whirly on the weather maps, has an eye at its center and all that, but. Even now it sits atop the mountains, the fog of its being slowly drifting down over our house toward the lowlands... I cleared the rain gutters this morning, and yesterday was out in the rain-blustery garden propping up the toppled tomatoes that were burying me in tangly wet dripping green, when I was just trying to save them, get them up there where they could catch the most sun, if they remember sun, if there still is such a thing that will ever reach the surface of the earth again if Jabba ever moves before all the green things just say the hell with this we’ll give it another try next year, maybe there’ll be sun at a new budding...