Brighter Later

As I should have expected, nothing is as simple as all that. Unable to entirely believe what I'd heard, I passed it by another ex-patriate who has lived here long enough to know something about it. "I heard that they still hang the sheets," I ventured. "Ah, yeah," she said, "they hang the sheets. But these girls have ways around it." "They do?" I asked, thinking, isn't there some Shakespeare play where the little vixen uses chicken's blood or something? "Oh sure. And you know, they're all forced to marry young and then they just all have affairs. Men and women."

Something of a relief in these small rebellions.

Or maybe it's just that the weather turned brilliantly lovely and for the first time I can see out my window the most stunning mountains.

(Now if I could just figure out how to breathe through this Himalaya of mucus that has settled in my upper chest, everything would be great.)