The Colonel

The rain pours down outside, threatening to fill the Naina lake, I am inside the Colonel’s flat, power lines are down and a flash of lightening lights up the interior to catch the Colonel pouring himself another rum.
I am 4 days into my annual illness and at last feel like I am recovering, the shits in Delhi have morphed into the shakes in Naini Tal. Here; in a terrible and surreal night; I appear to recall umpteen visits by the Colonel with rum in hand hovering over the bed enquiring as to if I would like a peg (measure) or two whilst at the end of the bed his equally drunk employee piling blanket upon blanket on me as if in an attempt to suffocate me. Either way the shaking has stopped and I have some appetite though not for rum at the moment thank you Colonel. (He has just popped round to see if I am o.k).
The Colonel is a brilliant man though prone to drinking a bit too much, army rations provide him with 12 bottles of rum a month which he says is not enough and by the 13th of every month he has to supplement that with supplies from the local liquor shop. The Colonel takes on anybody and anything he sees that he can help like the unemployed post graduate economics genius who is reduced to kitchen hand, making my coffee at the moment or like the savage puppy he recently found/kidnapped tied to a post by the roadside. The Colonel and I watch the pup thirstily lap up a bowl of water Colonel says with mirth “ Look at him once it starts drinking doesn’t know when to stop…. Just like me.”