Variation on a Theme: Rain

On a rainy day, one entertains thoughts similar to rain. The general chill in the air becomes a prolonged brush of coldness against reluctant skins. The falling raindrops create a symphony of sounds--raps against windows, patter on the ground, pin-sized knocks against doors, but magnified many times over. The mind roams over darkened plains and dismal landscapes, beneath unfriendly skies and indifferent roofs, across winding streets.

On a day such as this, you materialize, but never matter enough to be palpable. Your ghost descends, in perfect synchronicity with the rain and the blowing gusts, disturbing the spell of warm days, a hand against the stillness. You appear, though the validity of this, I am never certain of.

I am wiping the glass to make your image clearer, silently praying for recognition. I end up mumbling into the grayness of the day, mouthing names I can barely pronounce. Your image gets washed away by the rain, but for a moment, I make-believe it's your face I see reflected in a puddle.

What I love about rainy days is they blur remembered faces, dull the sound of uninvited voices, wash away intruding memory. The rain dampens the very sadness it carries with it, turning it into something that faintly resembles sorrow only. There is comfort in faintness--it softens things like pain, the way years of forgetting sometimes do.

After hours of rain, a hush follows. We wonder if the rain has gone, and slowly pick up where we had left off before it came.