Having just finished a J.P. Beaumont
mystery, he began reading a Wallander
mystery and immediately felt the dark
clouds hovering over the state park resort
descend upon his mood. Glad to be out of
the ninety-degree heat and eighty-five per-
cent humidity and in a cooling breeze, he
still couldn’t help it as death, depression
and Wallander’s soon to be diagnosed dia-
betes creep into his psyche. The wind pick-
ed up, the intense rain blew in and he stay-
ed under the canopy as long as he could
then rushed into his cute egg-shaped travel
trailer, entered the head and relieved him-
self for the umpteenth time in the last few
hours. He had been exhausted seemingly
forever, had had leg cramps just like Wall-
ander had and he just knew the diabetic end
was near for one more depressed Swede,
not Wallander but himself. He found him-
self yearning for a Ingmar Bergman movie
staring that really beautiful, but depress-
ed blond. He looked in the mirror and saw
that he was about as bald as Bergman. He
thought to himself, he has to stop identify-
ing so closely with the mysteries’ protagon-
ists. Just a few minutes before he was an
alcoholic, American detective of French
ancestry living with the ubiquitous rain
of Seattle like at the campground. Again
he thought, maybe he should have one
more glass of wine and a Tylenol before
he died of immediate liver failure synd-
rome brought on by one more glass of
wine and a Tylenol. While sipping his
wine he was informed by the six o’clock
“Up-To-the-Second, Breaking Disaster
News Team that Issis members beat
their wives into oblivion on a mere
whim, kill Kurdish enemies with nerve
gas and continue to chop off heads —
so much for vacationing at the resort-state
park along the shores of Lake Erie where
there are e-coli, algae alerts and the
putrid smell of rotting algae blowing in
off the lake.