FW: AtDTDA (16) 434 +

[David Payne]

> P 434 Special Desert Detail:   Desert = What Associations?    Doesn't TRP do some rifiing
on deserts in GR?.....  
 
>'some beetle species' swarmed..........Wasn't there some meaningful exchange about Beetles in M & D?
 
M&D p. 88, immediately following a Bodice-ripping interruptus: 
 
"In a corner, the Darkling Beetle rustles in its Cage, its Elytra the same unforgiving white as the great sand-waste call'd 'Kalahari' lying north of here, where the creature was taken up, brought Leagues overland to the Cape with hundreds of its kind, arriving hungry and disoriented, to be set out with others, like a great sugar-iced Confection, at some Harborside Market frequented by Sailors and the Strange. So far in its Life, it has never seen Rain, tho' now it can feel something undeniably on the way, something it cannot conceive of, perhaps as Humans apprehend God,- as a Force they are ever just about to become acquainted with...."
 
The follow page, after Mason falls from a collapsed balcony during a storm: 
 
"This time he decides to lie for a while, as he imagines in Surrender to the Forces of Nature, allowing Heaven's Rains to visit as they will. After a bit he notices a peculiar weight to the Drops striking his Face, and withal a distinctly lateral motion, as of something actually crawling-
 
" 'Ahrrh!' He plucks from his Face a Beetle, about half an inch long and emitting green light as if bearing a Candle within. He rolls his Gaze wildly about,- all 'round him, all over Cape Town, as 'twill prove, these Insects, swept here over Mountains and Deserts, are falling. It is not a message from any Beyond Mason knows of. It is an introduction to the Rainy Season."
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