high water

WE WERE SEQUESTERED in Ülejõe, near the Konsum parking lot, on account of some grave and rising health threat. Rory Lapp was the first to undergo screening and then he was released to return to his schedule. I think Rory was able to get over the bridge, I remember only glancing at him from behind, in his blue jeans and orange vest, but maybe he stayed behind, I don’t know. The sun was sinking into the river by then and the waters were rising.

When I went into the first tent for assessment, a young woman, dark hair and freckles, used a metal implement about the size of a match, a kind of awl, to pierce my skin and remove a small piece of flesh, just as the Lakota did during their Sun Dance ceremonies. Then she took this offering to the creator and instead of securing it in a tube for further analysis, she tasted it, ruminating and focusing on its flavor, as if that could tell her something about my overall state.

“Yes,” she said, nodding and tasting, “Yes, it’s just as I thought.” She never told me what it was.

From the main, brightly lit medical tent, I was led outside. The river waters were even higher, they were overrunning the high banks and running down into this part of the town, creating rapid whirlpools and swirling eddies. I watched as an old orange Volkswagen Beetle was swept away by the high waters, its owner just able to get out before the car was lost for good. High up on the riverbank, I could hear my Krishna devotee neighbors talking while this went on.

They were laughing and toasting the flood.

And then I was brought into a temporary tent, where it seemed like a dozen strangers were trapped in the sticky darkness. One of them, Alma, a blonde civil servant I knew from town, a few years older than me, seemed to jump me at once, crawling on top of me. She said, “Oh, good. I have always wanted to do this to you.” That’s how I wound up making passionate love in the darkness of a quarantine tent. There was a lot of sweating, blending, fusing. I pressed up against Alma’s hair, her ruddy, blushing face. It was rich and cathartic, but the situation gave everything a kind of menacing portent. What else do you do when the world reaches its end?