Rainwalking

Sparing the world a gushing over the smell of wet earth that the first Nor'wester of the season brings is terribly difficult; no amount of restraint will clamp it down into just an untold experience. But there is a phenomenon that I would like to discourse on today, namely, the suspension of a raindrop in a flood of light from a vehicle. Call it what you will, a dash a slant a hyphen a line a spark, there is that one eye-blink of a moment when you can catch it in neon and yellow, right in front of a car's headlight. Especially if there is not much rain, and especially if you have other things to think about while walking, like the smell of wet earth. They're there one moment and gone the next, these special illuminated raindrops, so you feel like you're in something out of James Barrie and almost clap your hands so that they'll get brighter. But you must walk as if you don't notice them, always, because you can never really see them except out of the corner of your eye.

Later when I reached home I realised I'd been counting them in my mind all along, hanging in those streams of yellow like bright metal clips on a clothesline, and there were six I remembered distinctly because of the number of times I crossed roads. Six, a round fat figure sitting right there, a reminder of the fact that in spite of all my whining I am, in fact, somewhere within carrying out a torrid love-affair with my city.