killed at the whim of a hat by colin cotterill

The problems would begin-if you were lucky-when the third section was inserted and the water started to rise, turning the hole into a mudbath spa. The earth in Old Mel’s field was a mixture of dirt and sand and once you got below the knotty pissweed, it was not terribly hard to dig. Once its top lip was level with the surface of the field, the second pipe segment would be placed on top of it and the excavation would continue. The latter would sink into the ground like a very slow elevator. He would then jump into the hole and continue to burrow downward, scooping out earth from beneath the concrete pipe. The nephew would dig a hole broad and deep enough to insert one of the segments. Four one-meter concrete pipe segments lay on the ground to one side. The tried-and-tested southern Thai method of sinking a well would undoubtedly not have been acceptable in any Western country where concepts such as “quality” and “safety standards” were firmly in place. He could have chipped in with some labor to make the job easier but Old Mel was a firm believer in not hiring a goat and bleating himself. He knew the nephew would stop work to reply because he couldn’t perform two functions simultaneously. He knew the response would be long and slobbered.

The nephew’s skull indentation made Mel wonder if he’d been hit by a metal petanque ball thrown at high speed. So, on Saturday last, Old Mel sat on the top rung of the back fence and watched the young man work. Twenty palms saved without crippling his spine. Oil palms took care of themselves if you watered them often and gave them manure treats once every three months. So, a well, a cheap Chinese pump, half a dozen sprinklers, and all he’d need to do was flick a switch.

Mel had been lugging watering cans out there for two weeks and his back bones were starting to clack like mah-jong tiles. The irrigation trenches his family had dug between the rows of oil palms didn’t extend to the rear fence and the new fronds were browning even before they fanned open. Old Mel hired one of Da’s nephews-the slow-witted one with the dent in his forehead-to sink a well in his back acre. BUSH, LACROSSE, WISCONSIN, 18 OCTOBER, 2000 “Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.”

Killed at the whim of a hat by colin cotterill