Monsoon Season

This is the part where rain falls long and straight like hair, where the tangles of lightning curl around droplets like thorns. (A descriptive essay.)

Monsoon Season

Thunder breaks the air and illuminates black clouds rolling thick over the mountains. The storm creeps in like the tide. The air is pregnant, that suffocating wet-blanket feeling before the first fat drops of rain fall. Monsoon season. Then comes the downpour. This is the part where rain falls long and straight like hair, where the tangles of lightning curl around droplets like thorns. One-story adobe houses line the hillsides, nestled snugly in like suckling piglets. A dog tucks his tail between his legs and shivers under the kitchen table. A child shrieks in tandem with a crack of lightning, parents fluttering over to her like crows over carrion. Horses stamp the ground anxiously in their stables.

Creosote is thick and sticky in the air. Mesquite trees open their leaves to the sky, dusty and thirsty and grateful. Scorpions wriggle into dry homes, cozying up in sock drawers only to be killed later by a frantic slipper. A homeless man huddles next to his borrowed grocery cart under a clay-tiled park ramada. The dry rivers swell. “Do not enter when flooded” signs become temporarily relevant. A silver Camry ignores a sign and sputters in two feet of dirty water. His good old taxpayer money went to installing that sign and his good old paycheck will go to repairing his water-logged engine.

Warm rain clears the desert air of dust and heat. Gardener-owners thank the sky for a respite from watering while curly haired teenage girls curse the humidity for fluffing their straightened hair. Everything is grey. Someone hydroplanes on I-10 for a heart-stuttering moment and regains control, wired with adrenaline to get home or anywhere that isn’t the highway. A young couple cuddles under a blanket watching and smelling the storm, very much in love. Thunder resonates in their chests like a singular heartbeat. Golfers and swimmers pray for clear skies in the morning. Two little boys squirm anxiously in a windowsill, waiting for their parent’s permission to stomp in puddles after the rain passes. The sky is clear of birds and everyone is at rest. Life will continue another day. 

-k.l.j.

Author's Note

Criticism and feedback much appreciated!