A roar starts up, fills the air. I look up and see lines, streaks in the air, barely visible on their own but with great motion and energy when saturating the sky. Voluminous, worldly. These panes of glass feel so sturdy usually, a barrier between the ultimate comfort and stronghold, my home, its heating in the winter, its cool in the summer, its brightness when working at night and darkness when sleeping. Windows are a view outside, a painting, a pleasantry, a decoration.

But, having been on the inside of it for a week now, these panes of glass have thinned. The rain outside: not a decoration, but a representation of all the things that exist, thunderous and massive and beyond comprehension. Grand, tumultuous, and thoroughly unconcerned with me, with any of brick structures that tightly pack and wind themselves into this city. The windows are no more than wires of a cage.

I look around; the room has darkened significantly as this feeling takes hold of me. Then, as quickly as it started, the roar dissipates. The downpour has moved on, leaving only its mist in its wake, barely perceptible streaks of rainshower, droplets clinging to the windowscreen. The downpour, huge and touching, yet so transient; something to always calculate for, to fear, to dread when it persists, but never guaranteed, always fleeting.

A small, low, wispy cloud moves quickly across the sky, a canvas of uniform glowing gray-white. My desk area brightens, lit by nature’s great diffused softbox. The sounds of the city resume, the hum of traffic, the sirens, my mother working at the dining table behind me. The windows re-solidify.