Santiago Vignettes

First it was a plague of caterpillars, then a raging hailstorm combined with a deluge rarely seen in a Chilean October. Now, the meteorologists say, tomorrow shall bring a diluvian event to end all diluvian events. The nasturtiums, born into the year of the Godzilla El Niño, their leaves bitten and battered, wonder what else will follow—frogs? Boils? And still they bloom! They bloom and bloom, reds and oranges! They bloom with all the hope that a rainbow will follow the storm.