rain dance

I could never have expected it when she told me.

Somehow, in all of her travels, it was almost inconceivable that she had yet to encounter something so.... fundamental! One could almost comprehend, given that her childhood had largely taken place in a desert. But.... to never have seen rain?

I slid open the glass door, stepping out into the warm air, heavy with moisture. I took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of nature, the whiff of ozone.

"Nothing beats a summer storm..." I mused to myself as I padded back into the kitchen on bare feet, my primal analysis of the weather complete. Rain had always energized me, both physically and creatively. I was equally as likely to jog as attempt to catch the elusive bolts of lightning on film, or rarely, canvas.

"Hmm?" She sat at the table in her silk pajamas, a bright shade of blue that reminded me of magic. The messiness of her hair had been disguised as a messy bun, a pair of hairsticks she always had on her person holding it in place

"You know, the sharp bolts of lightning, the rolling blankets of thunder, the rain...." My eyebrows rose when she shrugged.

"I have yet to see the rain." My jaw dropped, and my mind struggled to comprehend a lifetime in the absence of rain. No relaxing Sundays drinking tea and reading, listening to the rain fall on the roof. No running outside in puddles, no mud, no lazy days spent beneath the blankets because your plans were called on account of rain.

I mumbled at her, wandering into a different room to do some thinking.

---

It turned out to be one of those storms where the sun shines despite the rain. I tested the warmth, and then I took her down to the courtyard. I told her she wasn’t allowed clothes, she’d just get wet anyway. I wanted to see the scattered light play on her dusky skin, to watch her frolic in the puddles. I want to see the chopsticks fall from her hair as it becomes soaked with too much water for them to bear its weight. To see the sun’s jealous glow as it kisses her skin, unable to touch her as the rain and I can.

She obediently stripped off the silks, and I watched closely as the fabric moved over her body as it traveled over skin to pool on the floor. She took up her pink umbrella as I took up the chair from the reading corner just inside. I liked to watch the rain and nature, so when I had this house built, I had it surrounding a large courtyard with large windows to enjoy the view. Today, the view would be all the more beautiful.

She stepped out tentatively at first, feeling the rain beneath her feet. At the first encounter of mud, her eyes lit up, and she lost all abandon. She laughed as she frolicked, encouraged by the warmth of the rain to toss away her umbrella. Somehow, she remained dry and upon realizing this, ran, somehow between the raindrops or in a place it wasn’t raining. She turned her smile to me before hopping up on a table, as warm and untouched by silver threads of life as she had been inside. She held her hand out, and laughed in surprise as she caught a drop of water. Just like that, the spell was broken, and no longer was she of another world, but this one, and she was soaked.