by Kevin Dorning

Created on: October 08, 2009

Sun falling down on a Rainy Day

Dark bundled scurrying forms lean at precarious angles, striving for purchase against driving winter wind.

Fresh from the sea it blows cold, wet, hydraulic fingers reach, grasping, clawing, as if to strip soggy cloth from the shivering hunched forms.

It seems as though all the light has been sucked out of the world into some great swirling invisible vortex. Dimness shrouds the earth with a thick wet blanket leaving only shadows of reality.

Flags stand stiff, their staccato whip cracking voices snapping into the darkness. The wind laughs in hysterical crescendo as spindly, spider-broken, bouncing umbrellas, are driven forlornly, inside out, like tumbleweeds, away down rain washed streets. Useless against such onslaught they serve only as a banner to mark the bearer screaming, "I am not from here!"

Raindrops ride sideways on freight train winds under the steel gray scudding clouds. Sea mist mixes, salting the crystal sky drops which fall from the clouds, and the smell of seaweed and sea life are driven deep into the fabric of existence.

The Zephyr range rolls off into the distance, pierced by mountain peak gusts, rising high about the surrounding mountains of wind. And refuge is meager as the gusts augment raging currents of saturated atmospheric molecules. Humidity is a thing of dreams. This air is fluid. Percentages hold no meaning.

Waterways in street disguise flow strong and fast as any river. Pedestrians plunge and flounder; swimmers in a stormy sea, battling for one short dry breath, hoping only to reach the safety of the other shore.

Neither stone nor glass nor wood provide protection. For even behind closed doors, out of rage of the elements, moisture pervades. There is barely a passing acquaintance with dryness in this place. There are only manically perplexing inverse stages or levels: damp, moist, clammy, dripping, drenched, soaked, soggy, water-logged, teeming, wringing, saturated; like the many Eskimo words used to describe snow, it names are legion. But, there is no word for dry.

Mold and mildew perfume the air with musty incense spoors. Drying cloths rot on the line. Walls discolor in greens and blues. Mortar weeps tears of salt and lime. Metals oxidize at breakneck speed. Iron and steel turn red then brown, finally disintegrating into unrecognizable brickey lumps. Copper and Brass turn Green and slowly fall into tarnished disarray. Aluminum turns from silver to gray accumulating a sticky film of whitish, ash-like dust. I think even glass may corrode in this place.

But then, in a strange and sudden blessed moment, the cold gray shreds, rent by a diagonal blade or pure yellow-white that blazes across the land. Under the low metallic ceiling the beam slices piercing the dim for a moment, painting vibrant, living colors on the glistening wet canvas. Curtains of glittering raindrop pearls fall like faceted jewels scattering shards of clean, clear otherworld light. It opens the soul, unlocks the heart. Waves of emotion wash the cold shore of imagination. The heart is moved to worshipful awe-filled life pulses. The heart soars. The mind reaches out. The boundaries of the universe are torn away. And then there is no place better on earth to be.

Out of the cold, wet, gray chaos of despair emerges the brilliant, coursing possiblness of life.

Gulls cry. The sea crashes. The wind blows. And we live.

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