Rain

I am covered in black, head to toe. Too hot for this heat. Or, maybe not. The weather turns. Scattered rain quenches the heat and my arms grow cold.

A cappuccino arrives in grey porcelain cup with a floating heart atop the dark liquid.

“The origin of religion and the fact that we are Indian…” the man in front has an audience: his family. I don’t have headphones to drown him out.

My eyes move onto the screen as I change the pronoun from she to I.

Because this is my story. As I peer into my past, what I once thought trivial is turning rather interesting. Even academic. An internal chuckle. Rice paddies. Drizzles. Tadpoles and dragonflies.

I clean up a chapter from moving onto the next.

I remember the texture of what remains of rice stalks under my feet, in the midst of autumn festival. Hard and strong, it is the same bristle we use to sweep rough surfaces to clean away the grime.

As daylights get shorter, winter will arrive. Without a doubt, it will bring snow and cold rain to freeze the water underneath, to create another playground to keep us busy. Until the ice breaks, becomes messy slush, before it is set free to give life another chance to thrive with the dawning of spring!!!