An evening with the clouds

She decided to take a walk down her street late at night. The streets were empty and dimly light, as the cars sat along the curb collecting dust. The houses looked devoid of any sort of life, which was just as well, because not a single person would be awake at this time of the night. It was just her and the row of streetlamps along the sidewalk. They looked so massive at this time of the day, like a line formation of metal soldiers, projecting little circles of white light onto the empty cracked sidewalks.

As she walked along the street, she noticed a pair of eyes emitting a neon-green like colour, hiding in the shadows beside one of the houses. She stood there, quietly staring into those eyes, listening to the leaves rustling in the cool breeze. As the eyes began to move towards the light, it was clearer to see that they belonged to a feline creature. The cat moved towards her and slowly began to rub its whole body around her feet, making a figure-8 in between her legs. She noticed the cat’s sleek coat of fur. It was inky, much like the skies, and reflected the light, demonstrating its delicious silky-ness.

Suddenly it had started to drizzle. She looked up towards the sky and noticed the huge mass of clouds above her. Who would have thought that something as colourless as water would make clouds go so dark? The shadows grew darker as the clouds got heavier. She started to pace through the dark and dank roads, twirling through the familiar gullies, between the houses and shops, until she found a quiet corner between two shops. It was a square meter of dry land, that was sheltered by a metal sheet.

As the rain got excessive, tiny streams of rain water started to flow from the top of the sheet, draining onto the pavement in front of her and resting in between the uneven bricks. The streetlights mixed with the mist of the rain made the roads look otherworldly. The huffing of the wind rose up, stirring the branches and leaves around her. She could hear the mighty, swollen drops of monsoon all around her, it was like the “phut-phut-phut” sound that nuts would make when they hit the ground.

She shuddered under the shelter as the wind started to blow past her and pearls of rain embellished the side of her face. She reached into the right pocket of her coat to pull out a lifeless cigarette that she had brought with her for an occasion such as this. She lit it with her red lighter. It was one of those plastic, see-through lighters that you would buy for momentary use on a night-out and then forget about in the drawers of your dorm.

As the flames consumed the paper-roll of tobacco, the rainfall began to soften. It seemed as though the smaller the cigarette got the lesser the noise got and eventually faded into a musical chime. As she stood there huffing the last few puffs, the air around her seemed to be mangled with the fat, stale smell of burnt tobacco and the warm, sweet scent of the earth after the rain.