The wind picked up yet Anna kept her pace. Keen on getting home, with thoughts of her quilted blanket, a warm cup of cocoa and a new book she was dying to read, she hugged herself against the blowing wind. Anna tried to pin her wild tangled hair back but to no avail. Sighing, she continued to hug herself and walk.
When would she see the end of this alley? A hint of annoyance formed in her head as she strolled on, pass the billowing leaves and branches of the trees on either side of her. As she went on, she noticed that the leaves rustled less and less, their whisper now barely audible. Good, she thought.
Before she was even able to think of anything else, Anna heard the low rumbling of a seemingly distant storm. She tilted her head upwards. Sure enough, the sky lit momentarily and this time, it seemed to have come from directly above her. “Great”, she muttered.
Anna felt a small drop of water slide down her cheek. She stopped dead in her tracks, not knowing whether to run as fast as she could towards the inn a few meters away from home, or seek shelter under a tree. Then, the rain poured down on her.
The heavy drops of water pelted down on every part of her like shards of broken glass. The unclothed parts of her skin felt bruised. Her wet hair stuck to her face. Oddly enough, she didn’t feel bad. On the contrary, she felt a bit light- headed and… hopeful.
Snippets of her memory as a child flashed in her head, an image of a girl dancing in the rain, in spite of the mud that covered her bare feet. When had she ever stopped enjoying moments like this?
Anna lifted her face towards the sky so that it became parallel to it. She tried to open her eyes to see the oncoming droplets and realized how funny it was; how funny everything was. She danced, stomped on the concrete road and splashed on the puddles of water that formed on uneven ground. She held her arms wide open and spun slowly as if trying to embrace every drop of rain that fell onto her. After a very long while, she finally felt alive again.
First published in honestlyignorant.wordpress.com
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