It was a strange af­ter­noon, no doubt. The sun grinned from the west, mak­ing shad­ows in strange cor­ners and bounc­ing off white­washed walls, while the east­ern sky was dark and pre­mon­i­tory with a sin­is­ter tur­bu­lence. I was walk­ing home con­tem­plat­ing this con­trast and hop­ing for a rain­bow.

First an ap­pre­hen­sive drop hit my ear­lobe. I con­tin­ued to walk. The next landed on my cheek. The women com­ing out of the shop held out their palm and light­heart­edly ex­claimed, “Hurry! It’s start­ing to rain!”. I con­tin­ued to walk. I felt a drop on my eye­brow, then on my nose, then two drops at once and be­fore I could reg­is­ter that I had lost count, it had started to rain.

In the ephemeral dark­ness of a blink, the world com­posed it­self from scratch. A veil of twi­light fell upon re­al­ity. Dark manly clouds roamed the skies with silent do­min­ion. I was walk­ing in a ghost town lack-love and aban­doned even by the col­or­ful clothes hang­ing on the wires. The rain fell, mak­ing mir­ror of the end­less river of dead as­phalt. The storm ag­i­tated be­nign trees with mur­der­ous in­tent. There will be no rain­bow, the thun­der roared.

When drops fell, a pesti­len­tial mist rose from the ground like ap­pari­tions from the dead land. I was en­veloped in the si­lence of the col­lec­tive sui­cide of mil­lions of drops end­ing the jour­ney con­ceived in the ce­les­tial womb with one fu­tile splat. In that mo­ment I was si­mul­ta­ne­ously nowhere and every­where. Some­one had taken my essence and stirred it into the soul of the uni­verse. I was an inan­i­mate boul­der sit­ting by an ocean. I was the tur­bu­lence of the tides. I was the wid­owed wind. I was a speck of dust in the Sahara. I was si­mul­ta­ne­ously noth­ing and every­thing.

I was in that vi­o­lent whirlpool when I felt your tap on my shoul­der. I nav­i­gated back through the var­i­ous shades of dark­ness, through the var­i­ous depths of the ocean, through the re­lent­less cur­rents, through the heart of boul­ders and through the very soul of the uni­verse back to the re­al­ity of down­pour. I realized that I had for­got­ten that I was walk­ing or that I had feet or that warm blood still cir­cu­lated through my ar­ter­ies. I re­al­ized that I was drenched down to my bones and I had been shiv­er­ing. The real world was sad with a bit­ter­sweet nos­tal­gia for the sun. The col­lec­tive long­ing of mankind for a warm cup of cof­fee, for a dry towel and for an invit­ing blan­ket was as pal­pa­ble as the fra­grance of your neck.

With that shock, the first thing I no­ticed was your blue um­brella. Next, I noticed how you ex­tended the hori­zons of that sky that was your blue um­brella and shel­tered me from the many an­gry nee­dles which had dived from the empyrean imag­i­na­tion only to land on the wet hair of a clumsy boy deep in his mad­ness. I noticed how your shoul­der bumped against mine with a wink. I no­ticed how, with a small smile, you ex­tended your de­f­i­n­i­tion of soli­tude to con­tain me. I no­ticed how you promised eter­nal com­plic­ity.

It was when you smiled, and when I smiled back, that I de­cided the lit­tle sky of your um­brella was too small for two peo­ple. So I squeezed you into my be­ing. In my arms, I no­ticed how you were the glo­ri­ous bou­quet of every flower in the uni­verse, how you were the fra­grance of the for­bid­den ap­ple, how your lips blos­somed with the smile of rain­bows and how you were God’s fa­vorite mem­ory. With­out re­ally notic­ing it, I no­ticed how you be­came my warm cof­fee, my dry towel, my blan­ket and my bed. You be­came my own stretch of a cloud­less blue sky for­ever over my head.