The Shapes We See In Stars

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When it rains, I sit and look out of my window and wonder if maybe someday the world will be different. Do you know what I mean? Different. Like, maybe I'll wake up and the Earth will have started spinning in the opposite direction and the stars will have traveled to a different place in the sky. And if you connect them in the right way, the celestial diamonds will make a map that leads to today instead of yesterday or tomorrow. 

I like the rain. Because when it rains, I can sit and look out of my window. And when I sit and look out of my window, the water on the glass almost looks like stars and I can almost see the map. Almost. But not quite. 

I like the way thunder sounds. Because when it thunders, you can't help but listen to anything else. Not your parents whispering about you in the kitchen. Not the angry honking of your neighbor's car horn. Not the thoughts that echo in your head. 

I like the way that lightning lights the world up. It's like the flash of a photograph being taken. Everything in the world is frozen with that burst of ethereal light and, for a second, you can see everything in perfect clarity. It's better when the world stops moving. Then you can stop. Stop having to move so damn fast. You can stop and sit and watch people like you watch the rain.

That August, I wished it would rain more.

Sometimes it looked like it was going to rain. The clouds grew grey and everything looked like it was scrunching its face up to cry. Those days made me hold my breath. Because it felt like it was going to rain and wished it would. But most of the time, it was just gloomy for a little while and then the sun chased the clouds away, and everyone smiled because most people prefer sunny days to stormy ones. Other days, it misted. Those are the days when I could tell the clouds wanted to rain. They wanted to rain, but, for some reason, they just let a few trickles of water fall down upon the world. 

I didn't want mist. I didn't like mist. I hated mist. I wanted to hear the mighty roar of thunder. I wanted lightning to stop time. I wanted to make maps with beads of light on my window. I wanted it to storm.

It didn't rain for an entire month. Then, one night, it did. And it was the first night in a long time that I had felt alive.