The Symphonic Rhythm of Rain on My Umbrella as My Shoes Fill with Water

This rain is unusual, really is. It's odd. It's downright crazy. It's been raining for months, without let up, without recompense. It's upsetting and also I like it. I am torn between the love of watching the rain and hating it for making me wet and my shoes squelchy. Early in the morning I love it and later in the day my love turns to hatred, pure hatred. The dam in Artiste Village is overflowing and every morning I stand near the sluice gates watching the water as it shoots out, in huge torrents, turbid, overturning, foaming and frothing. I wonder at the beauty of this life-giving liquid that could also kill and disrupt. Scientists believe that at the start of the world, when the atmosphere was newly formed, it rained for years on end, as in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel. Today, I am on my morning walk and as I stand watching I can feel the fine spray of the rain on my face. It's most uplifting and elevating experience. But my shoe is slowly filling up with the precious liquid. Hm.

Later in the day, from my office I can see a sky that is the colour of molten lead. (Aside: I used to work in publications, you know, that used molten lead to set type in the age of letterpress printing. Have you heard of linotype machines? They were a hundred times the size of the modern computers and laptops on which you compose type. Magazines like Eves Weekly [Eves weekly used to publish short stories, poems, yay!] and Star & Style [Who was seen driving to Khandala with whom, yeah, stars used to have affairs then too!] used to be printed on these machines. We did fine, though each page had to proofchecked thrice before a final proof was taken before printing. Today I wonder if they even take two proofs, as publications are full of mistakes, are dry and uninteresting and don't publish short stories! Aside finished!) Just as it was when the earth originated in a miasma of ceaseless rain. Many say the world will end in fire, but, no, I think it will end in water. Today as I leave for work, there's the constant chatter of raindrops on my umbrella, an unending rhythm of symphonic music. I usually write a poem when it rains, have a collection of rain poems. This time I am doing something different. Watch this blogging space as I am fond of saying.