That unmistakable resonance of heavy raindrops plashing against the windowpane awoke me to the new calendar year. There is still a trace of lingering champagne taste in my mouth. My body is bundled into sheaf by two layers of quilt, as the storm from the North descended and plunged heavy precipitation and chilling temperature upon the arid South. I bundled myself even tighter, savoring the warmth as much as I can, so as to make up for the lost time during days which work prohibited such luxurious pleasure. The rain continues its unimaginative thud on the windowpane, apprising the world to wake up and smell the rain -- and the new year.

After much inward debate I finally got up (fighting off the chill is no easy task!) and washed. I breakfasted on two eggs, toast and the Sunday L.A. Times. I had ample time before N.'s scheduled arrival from Taipei at 5:30 pm, so, with a $20 gift certificate from Borders bookstore, I went and got the just-released paperback Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, and Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.

I read and lolled and had dim sum with a friend until it was time to head to the airport. The storm, after a brief interval, had resumed its furious roar as I stepped out of the door. By a mere five, six second exposure to the rain, when I ran to the car parked on the street, my shirts and hair were drenched with cold rain, and a shiver of chill crept up behind my neck so unsuspectingly that I just froze there for a good two minutes until the heater started cranking up warm air.

The whole ashen sky is shrouded in a sombre countenance, not a single gleam escaping through. Though the airport is only 15 minutes away from where I live, the condition on the freeway was not fit for normal driving (I had already a few instances where my tires were skidding slightly as a result of the rain). I arrived a little later than the intended time, but N. has still not come out from the terminal. I waited along with others in the waiting area, hands on the iron railing that marks the boundary of the waiting area, its coldness so penetrating that I thought of N.'s misfortune, and stood there like a bough, conjecturing scenes of upon meeting her fragile frame.

Her emaciated visage was marked out amongst throng of visitors, for everyone else featured a bright smile upon seeing relatives and friends, and her especial weariness had a protruding effect, despite her slender frame. When she saw me waiting she affected a smile, but unable to mask her mournful touch. We embraced one another; and as I squeezed her, I felt she was about to let out a cry. But she held back the tear in her moist brown eyes, and held check the twitching upper lip.

We remain unspoken until we crossed the traffic lane to the parking lot. "I feel like I have aged ten years...Oh, I brought a gift for you. You will like it much. Thank you for everything," said N. episodically, while flashing a genuine, lambent smile.

"Good to have you back, Kitty," said I, blushing for no reason.