The Rains

The rains brought a wet and soft kind of silence, a faint rhythmic thrum––on the leaves, dripping down the rough bark of the maples, mingling like familiars among the bowing blades of grass––a silence felt rather than heard. The mornings were sweet for Duncan and me, with a sprinkling so fine it could hardly even be called a mist. The drops were motes: silky, invisible, and delightful on my cheeks and throat, gathering as they did, like sunshine along the line of Duncan's back, extending from the tip of his nose, gathering together sweetly on his eyelashes, parading all the way down to his golden strands at the end of his tail.

It has been a long time since we have walked in such silence. The air had turned cool––nearly cold––and all those people in all those home around us were doing what I had done when the drowning heat of the week before had finally passed: they flung open their windows and turned off their air conditioners and allowed the first fresh air to mingle among their things and themselves. The Run seemed almost empty without the constant whir of machines, the lurching clap clap clap of motors coming suddenly to life. The only sound was the dreamlike drizzle off the trees and the soft squish of our feet in the soft earth. We walked slowly, without purpose or hurried pace, afraid to stir the silence even slightly for fear that the morning would shatter, which it eventually did, but by no fault of our own.

For many these rains were anything but peaceful. Homes have been lost, as have lives, and it will be a very long time before things return to the way were only a week ago, but for Duncan and me, in our little corner of the world, in their own way they were wondrous, not for their cacophony but for their serenity. That seems almost unfair to admit, but not to marvel at them would be a lie, and to ignore even the smallest drops would be a crime.