Instalment 29; Mustard Shorts Man and some rather gigantic rats

My yoga teacher, and his yoga class have moved out by the airport. When walking to yoga now, it is obligatory to walk through the area known for its gigantic rodents. Imagine the biggest rat you thought possible to be in existence, fatten it up a little, until it is almost the size of a small dog, with a snake sized tail, and you will have rat from this part of town. I didn’t really believe in them, until one frightful day, when I was walking home from the kindy in this area, and one walked out across the road in front of me. I was walking down a steep hill, along a tiny one-lane dirt road; the grass on each side of the road had grown up over my head. When I saw the gigantic rodent I turned around and ran back up the hill, then stopped and panicked a little, feeling trapped in the grass. I decided it was probably home to a whole pack of gigantic rodents and their rodent uncles. I then turned around again, paused, and ran full speed ahead down the hill with my eyes closed, and half way along the main road back into town. When I go to yoga, I only have to walk along the main road, not up the hill, but I can often hear much rustling in the grass and trees beside me. Yesterday, when I was quite along way from anywhere, walking to yoga, I heard quite a bit of rustling in the grass. I froze still, trying to figure out whether to run forward or back, when out of the overgrowth popped ‘Mustard Shorts Man.’ Mustard Shorts Man often pops up when you least expect him, in all different parts of town, I’m never really sure where he’s going, or where he’s been. Mustard Shorts Man is balding on the top of his shiny head, but has a puffy white afro ring, which grows out and the sides and back. His mustard shorts, which he never takes off, may have started their life as suit pants in the 1970’s. I’m not sure if they were once full length suit pants, that have been cut and sewed into tiny shorts, or if they belong to a summer fashion era, long ago, where suit pants were worn as very short shorts. They are made of that old professor-tweed woolen sort of fabric, and lately I have been noticing that they have an ever-increasing size hole, right in the middle of the bottom. Every day Mustard Shorts Man visits the USP office. This is the office for students studying by distance learning at the University of the South Pacific. I also visit this office frequently, because I am holding study groups there, and posting assignments for teachers. Mustard Shorts Man is not enrolled in any papers, nor has he ever been, but he spends hours there with his old dog-eared notepad, scrawling plans and writing vast quantities of notes. When asked what he is doing, he will reply that he is a professor, and has much important research to do, and requests politely that he is not disturbed again. I do not disturb him, but I smile nicely and sometimes give a little wave.