Five AM, and new light shows the dim sky smudged with clouds like dark bruises. The robin chirps insistently, drowning out the crickets. The house is still too warm. Lights show from the windows of early risers who will soon fill the streets with the sound of their cars. I will close my blinds and shut out the scorching sunlight, but the heat will penetrate the walls and the roof and obliterate all trace of night's gentle air nonetheless. It will wake me too soon, and I will cast off blankets and return to sleep, and perhaps be fortunate enough to dream that I am dozing on some beach, rather than trapped in a blazing pit of tar. Inexorably, the season of hell approaches.
By the time I woke up (after the earlier wakings to remove blankets) the day had turn splendidly gray, the dense cloud cover setting a nearby cricket to premature chirping. The stillness was then broken by a sudden shower of rain, greatly amplified by the big mulberry leaves. It was but a momentary fury, a few gusts of wind, a veil that fluttered and fell to earth only to dissolve and darken the ground. It rained long enough to dampen everything, and then the sun was briefly revealed by a passing thin patch of cloud, and spangled leaves and flowers and the wet pavement glistened in the soft light. Soon, the vague shadows diminished as the gray returned, the pavement dried, and only the tiny droplets clinging to leaves and reflecting miniature forests and drifting clouds remained as evidence of the abbreviated storm. Now I am sitting here in the cooled and freshened air, waiting for the rain to return. There must be more!
