Romantic Kathmandu

He entered the room by the soft glow of emergency fluorescent lighting. The crushed Kleenex next to her pillow called him to bed. As he stripped off his long johns, his LED headlamp flashed over her face and his eyes flicked to her powder-blue heavy cotton pyjamas. She slowly removed her earrings and set them next the hot pink plastic bedside lamp.

As he climbed into bed, a whiff of volatile organic chemicals streaming from a newly purchased hot water bottle still off-gassing stole from beneath the layers of mismatched comforters. “My you smell nice”, he remarked. A dog barked alluringly in the distance as a two-stroke engine puttered by. Another romantic night in Kathmandu had begun...