rainy days

From Bombay Ice by Leslie Forbes

People appeared out of every doorway and stood in the streets with their arms spread wide. I saw a woman close her eyes and turn her face upward as if in prayer. If she opened her mouth, she might have drowned. As it was, the rain pouring down smeared her lipstick and made the kohl under her eyes run. Her features were washing away, leaving a smooth slate on which to paint a new face. No one could mistake this rain for any other. It was not rain at all. It was as if the world had turned upside down and the oceans were pouring onto the land in one last great tidal wave. As if the sky had fallen and liquid had become solid.


And later…

The rain gradually let up enough so that individual drops were visible again. When those stopped, the noise faded to a soft, dripping silence. A sealskin silence. I remembered this from my past. The violence of the monsoon rain seldom lasts more than an hour or two. A serenely clear sky supervenes. There is a feeling of anticipation. I watch as a huge rent appears above us, tearing a swirling yellowish cavity in the sculptured edges of the massed clouds.