A Rainy Afternoon

 

It is somewhere near late afternoon I think, though one wouldn’t be able to deduce that from the view outside the window. It has always been shaded, the sunlight blocked by buildings and trees, but today it is dismal. The sun is completely hidden behind clouds, not even a single beam of light making it through. The sky is dull and grey. Already people are finding it necessary to turn on artificial lighting to attempt to dispel some of the gloom. They don’t seem to have been very successful against the oppressive darkness.

Rain is falling in torrents, so fast and heavy and thick that it is hard to see more than a few metres in any direction. The wind is howling, like a lone wolf in search of hapless prey, moaning through the trees and causing the somewhat unstable shade over the “Green Ark” to groan under its strain. The trees creak and sway with it. I idly ponder the odds of one of them falling before the end of this storm.

Occasional flashes of forked lightning are the only source of illumination. They are followed by rumbling thunder, almost painfully loud in volume. It contrasts with the annoyingly repetitive pitter-patter of the rain on the roof and the eerie wail of the wind. 

There is none of the soothing scent of petrichor for there is no soil for the rain to wet. Instead my nostrils are assaulted by an extremely unpleasant stench, a mix of wet garbage and sewage. My room is made stuffy by the odour of the still damp clothes hurriedly pulled inside. A brief whiff of ozone terrifies me for an instant, but fortune smiles on me in this at least and there are no fires in my immediate surroundings. 

Cold raindrops spray on my face, blown in by the wind and mingling with the moisture already on my cheeks, as I stare at the dreary sight. My hands curl tighter on my cup of hot cocoa, delicious regardless of the surroundings, as the temperature seems to drop again.