An Ode to Rain

 

An Ode to Rain

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“So what’s your favourite time of the year?” she asked, swinging a crossed foot lazily in the air, as she swirled a stirrer in a tiny cup of hot chocolate.

Perhaps the time when I used to lick melted drops of vanilla from the back of my hand? blind to the fact that I was painting a modern art piece on the pavement with ice cream. What a charming memory. Summer, I should say. 

What about the little shivers my feet do, tucked away in the layers of heavy blankets, while my nose and ears complain of the biting cold to my toes.   Hot soups, lazy mornings, clouds from the mouth when I speak and hoodies with cosy pockets to slide my hands into. 

Winter beats summer, surely. 

To be fair, I was born in spring, the perfect gradient from the cold seasons to hot summers. Just the right temperature, reasonably humid with a drizzle of rain here and there. It had never been dramatic enough to create a lasting memory of itself though.

Glancing out the cafe’s window to an overcast sky, the excitement to say something witty or funny had died by then. I continued to look away from her. The truth is, throughout the year, no matter the season, all I hope for is rain.

The curtains of the sky close in, dimming the lights as it prepares to perform. A symphony of whistling winds and the shushing sounds of the downpour, changing in intensity as the clouds pass over me. The occasional thunderclap when the orchestra crescendos, accompanied with a flash of lightning for theatricals. 

Little streams by the unpaved street, joining together to carry the rainwater to someplace I cannot go. The moisture carries with it a smell of damp mud, reminding me of that which I am made of.

But when the rain dies out and fate knows it always does. The white noise of the downpour grows loud suddenly, as the silence of its absence persists. All that remains is the sound of a weak but loud dripping of the rooftop drain, like a fading outro to a song.

Insects resume their trills, chirps, hums and applause. While I’m left alone with a thousand yard stare and a void in my chest. My body damp and cold everywhere but the place behind the eyes.

The inexplicable feeling of wanting to shed myself lingers. To want to be one with the damp earth, the streamlets that flow over it and the passing clouds that shroud my existence.

‘Rain.’ I say, with a definitive sigh, raising both my brows and a heavy smile. And in that, I had conveyed the pathetically poetic lens with which I saw it. Rain. A melancholic freak of nature, that paralysed the worst of dreamers, and killed the best of them. 

For what felt like a long time, she looked at me with that deep intoxicating stare, fidgeting on the side with the strap of her tote bag. I almost started speaking again, dying to elaborate. But with the smallest upturn of her lips, she hushed - ‘Same, actually’.

And at that moment, I knew,

She’d died a dreamer in the rain just as many times as I had.

- P . S