RAIN

I sat by the window during the rain this morning. The sound of the drops hitting the tree limbs, the grass and leaves, the sidewalk; they were all a pattering with a strange but familiar rhythm. There was a rhythm on my helmet, and sometimes my bush hat, when we used those. Kind of hollow, not a splat like on wet concrete or metal. A thud or thump, the dryer the bush hat the more the thump. Sometimes there was a quiet rhythm that would grow in volume as the rain came down harder. That was usually in the afternoons during some seasons of the year, mostly monsoon. It was so hot. I can remember it but don't know how to describe it. There was no cool; just a wetter or dryer 'hot'. Oh how we prayed for that afternoon rain. And then prayed it would stop. We could stay wet for about an hour. An almost hour of not so hot. In that almost hour it was an almost relief to be savored. Then, quicker than the almost relief, there were other sounds. Our brains were now back on auto. Every squeak, snap, bird or animal, we heard. The lizards especially; they kept us jumpy and cautious during the day. Not jumpy as when someone goes "Boo!", but really extreme hearing, sense of smell and eye sight. It's hard to explain when one's eyes become binos and a microscope at the same time; we could just see better. At night, they sang to us. Not the rhythms down by the lake, but their night rhythms. and they were nasty. There were others as well; no sense or reason or rhyme at all. They were their sounds. We could smell them too, right after the rain. A contest of noses; we smelled rice and Ngoc mam. They smelled our cigarettes and all kinds of other foolishness we often took in the bush. If we were fresh in the field we were walking lifebuoy and pop-up air fresheners. And we kept moving. No straight line, no 'on-line', but maneuvering. In the wet hot of the morning hours; through the pee slop hot of mid-day, and the hateful hot of the afternoon waiting, with hope, for a shower. Always maneuvering, spaced correctly, watching you, watching me, watching feet, studying for lines, wires and what might be a pressure plate. We moved toward our night position. Then came a new set of skills. Automatically turned on by the sinking sun and rising moon, if there was one. Now there were new questions for our conditioned minds and bodies to bring up to night defense level. Did I want a moon out, or would we be safer in the dark. We were on auto.