Rain

It is tapping. Imagine a constant crumpling of paper, same pace, same volume. When it started, it came down in a sudden "bang tang bang" and you felt that something had been dropped, like sand, above your head. The sound on the metal corrugated, red, iron sheets was alarming. It gradually rose and reached a crescendo, a maximum volume of sound, and then it died down, to a tapping. Looking out, it had collected. I was on the upper floor, and next to my window on the left, slightly below the window itself, it mixed in with the small particles of dust and a leaf here and there along the corrugation, because it had been so long since the metal sheet was cleaned- or perhaps it had just collected: the wind was powerful before this happened. The dirt particles uniformly sprinkled in a line, the pieces of leaves, here and there . You had to look carefully for the hail- the momentary miniature pearls of a cloudy color, immediately melting and turning the red metal around it into a halo of brighter red than the rest. You know that sweet made of those milky, small, pebble like balls- that is how they looked. Perhaps, of a smaller size.

It is still raining. It is an easing, constant sound. The roof here is made of corrugated iron, just like the building that I was in this afternoon- I can hear the roof although I cannot see it. The droplets are large.

When it first started, there were no taxis. Finally, one came. I got in, already wet. Fifteen seconds- I counted- till I was drenched. The gutters by the road filled up quickly, with streaming dark muddy gray water flowing down to the lowest point.

A temple of the old stacked pagoda style- imagine a four sided temple roof, with clay tiles, partially overlapping, sloping upwards from the sides in a gradual slope, and just before meeting at the center, meeting instead at four walls which hold up the next roof, smaller, of the same shape. This happens three times, and the last one peaks in a Gajur- a metallic shiny, structure that reaches up and points to the sky. All around the three roofs, big and small, hanging down, there is a red skirting with a golden border. It is overlapped, and wavy. When the rain came, it turned the upper portion into a dark red, uniformly, while the lower edge stayed dry. The two striped skirting because three striped: dark red nearest to the roof's edge, then the light red of the original cloth, and the golden border. The temple has been redone a little bit- the walls around it have been painted a reddish orange, and the tent shaped tiles which used to cover the slanted edges of the roof- where two sloping sides met- four per roof, had been replaced by a long, crude looking, cement mound- four per roof.


The temple reached up, alone, against the dark gray sky, colors muted by sunlight that was mostly blocked. Yet, everything was bright enough, and then in the background, a purple flash- lightning. Two seconds later, a shuddering rumble that seemed to come from all sides. And all of a sudden, the "shhhhhhhh" of rain. My eyes closed for a moment, and I drowned in sound.

The rain was heavy. Fitting for rain that had been stored up in clouds for months. Somehow I made it home.

The radio is off now, perhaps as an ode to the rain, whose sound is joyous.

The first rain of the season.