Thanks to Ms. Sharrow for the story suggestion. What should I write about next?
January is January. Unless you live in Rio. If you live in Rio, then January is July. It is so July that the residents respond to the weather as if it actually was July. Their July is their January, although not nearly as Junary as Duluth’s January. Duluth’s January was very January, as Richard could plainly see from his desk on the first floor of the North Shore Bank of Commerce. It had less to do with the slight covering of snow and more to do with the way the few pedestrians clenched their jackets in steel-strong fists and ducked their heads into the cold to blunt the wind.
But in Rio today, there would be none of this. Richard gave a slight nod, and shuffled the discards into a neat stack. He stood to take them to the shredder. In Rio, right now, this very moment, the salsa dancers were in practice for their marvelous carnaval. They dressed up in bright yellows and reds and wound their way to the schools through the drab gray favelas. And when they got there, oh, how the music would shake from the speakers like a herd of tapirs on the run before a storm. The music would shake and the dancers would dance and Richard took a leap in the air.
His hand slipped and papers fell all over the place.
“This floor is too slick!” he barked. “Someone could get killed.”