Rain!

No, not just rain. More than rain. More than a storm. More than a torrent, even. No less than the wrath of an angry god! Picture, if you will, a perfectly blue sky, with few clouds, and those that are there being of the Simpsons's opening theme song variety. Then, over the course of few hours, as my mother, brother, and I scoot about town in order to get lunch, deposit checks, and go to a bookstore, it darkens, slowly but surely. The sky grows dense as our happy cumulus friends give way to decidedly less friendly cumulonimbus monstrosities, and the whole sky-type shebang darkens from a pleasant off-white to a sinister off-black, by way of a thousand shades of grey (there is no off-grey, you know. Off-grey is another term for yep, still grey). So, the consensus is that storm's a-brewin', let's head home after the bookstore.

It started before we left the bookstore. It came down, hard. No, harder than you're thinking. You're imagining it raining cats... maybe dogs. More than that, beyond housepets. Lions and wolves is still insufficient. The wolfman and one of those cat-women from fifties sci-fi is getting closer, but I do think that we need to get beyond mere land mammals to encompass the sheer power nature had on this day. It was raining whales, giant squid, and a goodly number of saurians as well. Frankly, the bulk of the kingdom Animala fell from the sky, and I'm not even sure if I'm being facetious. The visibility was low enough that an elephant could have landed five feet in front of me, and I'd have had No Idea so long as he scampered away before I got tusked in the eye.*

It was astounding. There was a solid wall of water in front of us, which was eventually broken only by hail. This was rain you held your breath to walk through, lest you drown. I was convinced that, if I pushed up hard enough, I could swim up to the surface of the atmosphere and climb out into Buddha's back yard, where we would enjoy some grilled Boca burgers and maybe go out for ice cream later on if we weren't enlightened yet. It took ten seconds to get to the car; I've taken showers where I emerged dryer than I was when I got in the car. I'm fairly sure the top of my head is brown now; I haven't checked, but I know no dye could survive such a downpour.

Streets were flooded on the ride home, water climbing above curb level. Splashing pedestrians was the rule, not the exception, but it didn't really matter because they weren't going to notice anyway. Windshield wipers ceased being an effective tool whilst under those wide-open clouds, serving only to access brief moments of under-overpass visibility.

Water shot out of drainpipes with more force than some of your finer non-lethal weapons.

It was, in short, a living reminder that we are still under the thumb of the random whims of a hostile planet in a universe that feels no special love for us, even if we are the self-proclaimed pinnacles of creation. A point driven home all the better when, after the ten-minute drive home, this drowned-rat-looking family was standing in a drowned-rat-filled alley, the rain just STOPPED. Instantly. Leaving us standing together under a fresh beam of sunlight, like some inexplicably wet-looking Norman Rockwell painting.

The moral of the story, I say as if there actually is such a thing (there isn't, I've just watched enough TV to think that I can't get by without a proper moral), is probably something about the mysteries and wonders of the world. Or, how life is full of surprises, or to see the beauty in everyday things. Or maybe something not incredibly sappy, like... teamwork. Yes, yes, the moral of the story is teamwork. And now, let's jump into the air, get caught in a freeze-frame, and have the words "Produced by Aaron Spelling" superimposed over our bodies. Ready, set, GO!

*Note to self; elephants do not scamper. Go out later and collect ivory from rotting elephant carcasses that assuredly litter the city.