Foetid Swamp Socks

It was dry here for a lot longer than usual. The heat had become spectacular, filling your lungs in a way that I don't recall it doing last summer. Stepping outside had become a situation where, coming from air conditioning, you could get the bends. So when the rains came the beginning of this week, I think it even shocked the natural environment. Going outside now, it literally smelled like rotting socks, the lichen and mushrooms tiny but everywhere, the trees and grass and weeds greener. Storms came and when we got back from the gym one night, every inch of the street leading to our house was covered in little pieces of branches with green leaves. Like some guy had levitated about twenty feet up and just done some kind of Crouching Tiger kungfu dance among the trees while holding a chainsaw. "Humid" isn't the word for what we have now. It's something thicker than that. The local lakes are engorged. The frogs are throaty with the weight of victory. The snakes are flooded out. And the Lizard-Skink, who loves both dry and wet, seems both muted and bold because I see him more, but I can no longer hear him stitching his way through the dry leaves.