Rain at Midnight

When the rain falls this hard, it sounds like the wind blowing downward, flattening everything.

It sounds like all the trees and buildings and rocks muttering. I wasn't paying enough attention to hear the alarming announcement they are discussing so furiously. What did I miss?

It sounds like a conversation between the sky and the ground. Family business needs to be discussed, but not so the children can understand. Sky and Earth are the parents talking downstairs so their voices hum throughout the walls and floor.

It sounds like a giant just dropped the world into a frying pan so the hot oil sizzles and pops. Soon we will be crispy to the core.

It sounds like a long shower at the end of the day, like the ocean just around the corner, like the orchestra from outside the concert hall. It sounds like the confusion of voices in my mind, like the clattering of emotions when I try to sleep, like all the things I need to get done (by that time, before this time), tumbling together. It sounds like minutes rushing by before I can catch them. It sounds like memories washing across my face.

--and it stops. Nighttime silence falls instead. The world is still. Now I remember: those things can wait. Each day has enough trouble of its own.