Rain
The clouds forebode a coming storm in the dark grey heaviness that scraped along the tips of the mountains. Thunder comes rumbling in from a distance as the winds pick up the dampness of the clouds and sweep it into your nostrils. Faint flashes of lightning, cold winds blowing, and the ominous approach of fog. The trees sway with the wind and rustle their branches, knocking loose dead leaves from the boughs. A stiff wind picks up the leaves and blows them across the pavement.
Then, a trickle of water hits you on the nose as the thunder rumbles closer and closer and more frequent. The lightning grows brighter and the trickle turns into a drizzle. The kids in the neighborhood are still playing, laughing and cackling, oblivious to the rain. The fathers snore in unison, deep asleep in their couches as the mothers bring in the laundry to dry and to avoid the rain. Another roll of thunder comes and with arms filled with blankets, shirts, pants, and coats, the mothers call out to their children to hurry back to the house lest they wish to be rained on.
A crack of lightning speeds across the sky above and the sudden roar of thunder assaults your ears. The world is a flash of white for a moment and roaring thunder the next. The rain comes in first as fat dollops of water turning the light grey pavement darker as they hit the dry concrete. The rain comes in like a curtain. It gushes and pours as a multitude of water comes crashing down in the world around you. The leaves bow to the dominance of rain as water clumps together on the road forming puddles and rising higher, failing to escape clogged canals.
The children scream back indoors as windows are closed and water pours in from gutters to drums eager to take their fill of rainwater. The fog veil and blanket the forest and the mountains far in the distance. The world is white as life turns enshrouded in the clouds. The rain pours and roars into the tin roofs, pavement flooding as a deluge of rain pours into the road — more than the canals could muster out. For a while, the world is water and all it is is water.
As quick as it began, the rain wavers off. Waxing then waning and dying off to drizzle then a trickle. The leaves boast their new dew and the clouds are lighter than when they came. The fog lingers and continues to veil, to obscure all the world beyond the fog wishes us to see. The children come back out to skip stones on the flooded pavement, wading through ankle-deep puddles with their bare feet.
The world is cold and wet and fresh. You take a deep breath and relish the freshness of the world. Staring into the distance, the fog begins to waver and wane. The world is made anew.
