This as good a page as any, I reckon:
The Nepalese. They do know it, Peace. Have to, given what’s around ‘em, and they still live here. Might be the gin talkin’…you think you come to a place, ‘specially place like Nepal, and think these are the things that are expected or cliché, but it’s true. Something there, some force, it won't let you miss it. Consider:
I woke at 1 am. I’m not used to the time, and I’m trekking the southern Himalayas, which ain’t necessarily easy, so my clock’s a bit off. So I’m up and I’m thinking ‘bout the regrets of my life, mostly girls I never told I loved, particularly the one got the better of me before all the others, as much as it shouldn’t mean so much to a man, but it is and was to me…still itches me today…I should call her, if she’s still around somewhere. But that’s not what this is about. It’s one o’clock in the morning.
I’m staring at the window. The window thinks, “Goddamn, it’s one o’clock in the morning, and I’m staring at a man. Well, maybe a man, maybe a kid. What the hell am I doing?” But the man-kid, he’s equaling the intensity of the stare. Mostly, I’m taken by a flash from the glass. The window, it’s blinkin’ at me. Not lightning, goddamnit, and certainly not the alcohol, that thing is blinkin’ at me like I’m a high skirt, and it’s 1955 again. Of course, I’m not buyin’ it, not buyin’ it for…well, not buyin’ it past the first or second, but I’ll admit that I am the impressionable type…
I regret a little more while that window’s still playing his game, and the thunder cracks…and the regret hurts a little more. I don’t know what she’ll say, but I hope I laid on thick enough back then. I hope I love her- 18 years old and then gave her, her and everyone else, years to think I wasn’t human- I hope I am now. Hope.
I can’t stare at the window anymore, and I try to use my legs and do something about it. I have two big and old enough to take me outside, but they shrink up quick. Stepping from nice, warm, soft wood inside to the cold, bare stone outside- there’s gotta be miles between the two…but probably not. Whatever the case is, that’s the one biggest step I’ll ever take.
The new moonlight feels cold, much colder than the American brand. Way I’m feeling tonight, coldest I’ll probably ever feel. It’s funny, though, right there in the midst of it- it takes a second to rule out yellow, and I don’t think anyone’s ever decided on blue, white, or any conceivable mixture of the colors, but you’re bathing in it, looking at it, perceiving something right in front of you that you don’t understand. And somehow you keep your wits about you. It’s filling your lungs, invading your pores, telling sweet, eerie lies to those peepers of yours, and, all the while, you’re the most irresistible mannequin ever to venture into the Nepalese night. Peculiar, wearing a color you perceive and don’t recognize; maybe a little like first meeting your mother at age 50…feeling the relief of quenching an unknown thirst after so long.
God, heave-ho, I hope she gives one one-thousandth the thought to me as I’m givin’ her this evening. That would be more than enough for what I’ve still got to do…why is this attacking now? It must have to be, commanded by the specters going about in this light…the color of the light might drive me batty- the color of ghosts, it must be. I hope I love her, or anything even. It’s been a long time, and, as strange as I am, I think it’s mostly to her now, that I seem strange, that is. Jesus, that’s really not me. Really, heave-ho, heave-ho, and tell me you love me. But I don’t know who I’m talking to anymore.
The glow of the night- scary as hell, but I’ve never seen this before, and I can’t step away from novelty so easily. I guess I’m the impressionable type. It’s weird, doing it, this travelin’. I ate food, talked to people- that ain’t the new part, travelin’, not like this. I’m scared here, and probably reasonably so. The sky, deep gray-blue, like the kind of water nobody ever comes back out of, blinks some macabre blink, like something bigger’n me’s warnin’ me of something. “Go back, this isn’t your hour, old man, go back,” somethin’ like that. Scary, but exciting, even for a man feelin’ cold in his skivvies in front of the lodge. Old man, he came out for the rain, but he felt it on his face, and, now, well, now, he’s just sober and scared. Something touched me on the face, changed things. Old man, he don’t know where the hell he is.
The opposite wall of the valley is lit up with 12 lights, yes, electric lights, but electricity’s normal, and he doesn’t believe much in the symbolism of things, just that coincidence occurs arbitrarily, even if there is a 13th way high up off to his right that his conscious wants him to doubt. Was it there? Yeah, probably it was, but can’t say for sure. Hell, it might even been lit by real flame, which makes it the first of its kind, not the 13th. Old man, he can’t take his eyes off it though, even if the goddamn sky won’t stop warning him to go back inside.
I shivered and walked inside at my own pace, clouds be damned- old man, he ain’t that scared. Even if he is spineless, cold, and unsure.
It’s going to rain tomorrow.
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