THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF DRY

Do you cry when it rains?

If the clouds turn gray, and the sky shifts to a darker, denser shade of blue, do you wait with glee for the coming storm, or long for the sun's return?

If there was a world where rain was the norm, would its people miss the absence of a sun they possibly had never even imagined, let alone seen?

Would they lie awake at night, discontent, rolling from left to right and back again, wondering what was missing inside of them? Perhaps they would dream of a harsh and yellow light, and wonder what it meant and where it came from. From inside of themselves, their secret hearts, or outside, distant but insistent, penetrating their dreams like a pin through skin. In their dreams this light would be soothing and healing, but upon awakening it would retract into the hole from which it escaped.

Once again there would be nothing but the dark and the rain, and perhaps that would be enough. Who can carry alone the burden of the weight of dreams into the waking world? Better to be wet, awake, than mourn the impossibility of dry, asleep.

I imagine a group of people on the shores of a beach, watching the fishermen from their families lazily drift back to land with the catch of the day. The rain hits the water like bullets. The clouds are black and full, like floating charcoal. The boats bob and sway as the waves rise and fall. As the boats get closer to home the families get more and more excited, eager to see this moment's fish and this evening's dinner, anxious to see their fathers and uncles after twelve, thirteen hours abscence. The rain is hard and constant, but the fish will be fresh, and, in a few hours, their bellies will be full.