rainy days and mondays

The rain came quickly, sneakily.
"It's going to be hot today," Mhalo said just a few hours ago during out morning toast ritual.
Here it is now, falling like wet marbles to pock mark the dirt on the soccer field. The crows have found leafy umbrellas, and protest with a cry when their trust is betrayed, and their oil slick feathers turn slimy. An abandoned kite swings like a possum dripping, dripping. A man fleeing unashamedly gets a bucket worth of water from the dokan tarp. They dump down sometimes. One tiny drop fills it too full and it releases its liquid load on some poor person's head. I've been in his wet shoes before, but still I laugh at him. Bits of the bamboo walls and tower forehead are the last bits of the Pandel caught in the rain, drunk from the festivites and all that's left of Durga Puja. The thunder shakes me. I can hear it inside of me and out, even before the lightning fizzles out. I imagine being shocked by, maybe through osmosis, and now my hair is on end mad scientist style. An arm in a flannel crimson shirt slid out from between two wooden cha stall frames. With a stick he pokes and prods the garbage and leaves from the drain, which looks like a small cattle guard when it isn't covered by the trash and water that flooded our street last month. As the man digs at the metal, the water and offending plastic start to whirlpool away. Satisfied, the red arm retreats, and the man watches, content with his act of goodwill. His victory is short-lived, though. After a minute, the draining puddles grow still, like a lake after a rock has been thrown in. With a sigh that's visible, if not audible, he plunges his arm in up to the main muscle and starts to feel around. He emerges pleased and disgusted with his findings, and with that the movement begins again.
Still the water falls faster than it goes away.
I watch and remember until I'm dried up like the rain and soggy as the dirt.