Downpour

The rain came as a surprise, not like the rains in Dublin, where one always carried an umbrella and assumed that at any minute, even if the heavens were blue and breezy, grey misty curtains could close in on the theater of the sky, carrying with them another rainshower. No, this rain descended unexpectedly after weeks of dry, hot sun had desiccated the city, and it arrived all at once, delivered on a swift gale that swept in front of the torrents of water, pushing the air in front of it like the gusts that escape an opened oven.

He stood, nose pressed against the window, bouncing up and down in excitement until his mother finally gave her permission. Running out into the downpour, he circled around and around the backyard, raising his arms up to meet the falling drops of water, palms outstretched, reveling in the cool respite from the summer's monotonous heat. He danced as though observing an ancient ritual, passed down through his little body from the collective unconscious: a communion with the element of water, so basic and simple, so axiomatic, so profoundly powerful in its ability both to create and to destroy.