AWOL Clouds

Skandagiri.

Fashionably late, we piled into Dillu's Safari and, stopping only to pick up supplies enough for an army to march on, we drove to Chikkaballapur and the temple at the base of Kalwarbetta. It took just a couple of hours to follow the moonlit path up to the top of the hill and the remnants one of Tipu Sultan's forts.

It was a quiet night on the hill as we ate our tuna, turkey, chicken, cheese, cucumber and tomato filled sandwiches. With sated belly, I collapsed and let the old light from Orion, Taurus and Cassiopeia impinge on my retina. A couple of hours of stargazing later, I ducked out of the chilly breeze into the tent and pretended that rocks make good mattresses. My snoring soon announced the success of the sandman.

My repose was unkindly intruded upon by a screaming horde of invading Huns. Wait, perhaps they were a troupe of monkeys leaping from rock to rock in the moonlight. Or maybe I had fallen asleep in a fish market. My sleep confused mind struggled with these possibilities and came to the conclusion that I was actually in a stress-induced nightmare. And I slept.

I awoke as the sky turned from black to indigo and scrambled out of the tent. Whoa! The nightmare was still there! Then, with the day, realization dawned. The clouds that were to greet me were AWOL. Instead there was a TV9 crew shooting the loudly chattering crowd of people that had gathered to watch the sun rise.

At least the sun didn't disappoint, and I watched the miracle of day unfold before me.