the promise of rain

The brown-rusted patches of a distant rooftop is getting unevenly brown, just as I sit on a window ledge, rubbing my afternoon sleepy eyes. The gray areas are getting grayer. Then, I hear confirmation: a faint tin can thumping. It's beginning to rain.

I am waiting for the thumping to get louder, and to spread to nearby rooftops, but with the storm having already passed, the wind that shook the acacia and guava trees free of dead leaves has become a weak but cold gale. I miss the storm, and the gray-dark horizon and sluggishness it brings.

Beside me is one of those windows of old childhood. Old wooden frame with small glass panes framed inside, with the whole thing swinging side to side, routinely shoved by the wind, and hanging on old and squeaky hinges. A stagnant Sunday afternoon. The remnant of a storm.

I have to hold out my hand, to stop the window from swinging at me, as a cold moist wind shoves it. The gray rooftop farther away has stopped darkening. Raindrops have stopped coming down. I feel betrayed.

I stare out, past the rooftops, into the grayish horizon, willing darkness to come, holding the wind and sky to a promise of rain.