Krabi, ThailandThe river, pummelled by thousands of heavy beads, loses its reflection, shattered and diffracted into a furry matte brown. Sparkles of splashes sweep across the surface in wind-blown waves.
Rain and heavy clouds dull the vibrant greens of mangroves lining the far bank. Though subdued, it still haunts me with its beauty, emerging from the distant mist and concealing an almost sinister secret under a thin silk veil.
When the deluge passes, the world is bright and colourful, the fog lifted from my eyes. Puddles relax back into silver reflections of the soft grey clouds above. The veil is dissolved, revealing the docile hills and peaks I always knew were there somewhere beyond the mist. The river returns to its scattered facsimile of the sky and bank, tinted a rich olive by the churning of the rain.
A dark line bar-coded with thin trunks separates the water from the trees. Gaping open at low tide, it looks like a whales mouth, filled with a coarse brush of teeth.
A pool in the road has swelled and crystallised: gently shimmering reflections of a nearby balustrade stand on the water with a backdrop of meandering clouds. Tufts of emerald grass rim the water like a gilded mirror frame. The pavement rises in the middle, emerging through the mirror like an island in the sky. A young girl steps into the ether, sending the image into chaotic disarray. The clouds scatter as if in fright. The balustrade shatters and disintegrates into a million glassy pieces.