The first echoing booms of thunder matched my footsteps as my sandals slapped the pavement. I could see the storm clouds gathering in the distance, but that didn't deter me from my path. I jogged, quicker now as I tried to race the storm that was beginning around me. I inhaled a breath of steamy air, the stillness around me almost eerie in light of what was to come.
Only a few more streets now.
My breathing became more hurried as my lungs struggled to make sense of the humidity. It was not a new sensation, but almost a forgotten one. I could feel the clouds around me like guardian angels: I knew they were there, just intangible in my present state of mind.
Lightning raced across the sky, complementing my beating heart as sparks of electricity coursed through the landscape. Any minute now, the sky would break and shatter into millions of pieces that would fall to earth, electrifying dry and barren soil into a lush bearer of life.
I could see my house with the fountain in front under the olive tree laden with fruit. I was almost there. My legs gambled for seconds as they willed me forward faster on a hopeless attempt to buy back lost time and evade what was coming behind me.
For a moment, I tried to become what I was running from and I closed my eyes for the barest moment of space. When I opened them, a curtain unraveled from above and I watched as the world was obscured by the blessing of darkness accompanying rain. And in an instant, I forgot who I was and where I was going as the storm washed over me like the future rushing ever further from my grasp.
