Rain and crickets
I’m sitting here in bed, reading the fourth book of Corey’s The Expanse series, when I hear the rain start up again. For a moment, it barely registers above the sound of the crickets, a gentle backdrop to their singing. [Grumpy aside: how the FUCK did whoever install these windows? The six foot height lets in impressive and welcome light, but sounds come through like half the panes are broken out.] Then as it picks up in intensity there is a moment of balance, where the drumming and creaking are equal, an impressive but fleeting song, whose measure seems just within one’s grasp before shifting into something new. The lustful males are driven to shelter by the strengthening percussive beat and the drips take their place, the sodden sounds of runoff on the leaves and ground blending with the duller, deeper thudding of rain on the roof. The water has layers of sound, like diving through an inversion zone, while somehow individual drops make themselves known against the background, like that last faint yawp in Horton Hears a Who.