It's raining. There's thunder in the distances. Dancing thunder, the kind that calls you out to play. It's shouting, "Come join me or you'll be sorry."
"Sorry?" I ask.
"Yes, sorry."
The thunder stops. The rain rattles against the ground, expands. It's knocking.
"She didn't mean, 'sorry'," says the rain. "She meant, souring. You'll be soaring."
There's a new shot of thunder, like a shot from a pistol.
"Why are you listening to us now, after all these years?" The Pistol Thunder ask, as it's voice fades away into nothingness, only to return closer, more embolden: "I asked you a question."
"I'm thinking," I answer. "It is all too much to take in. I never knew rain could talk."
"We've always been here," a distant voice says. "You've just never listened."
"That's not true," I challenge. "I've always loved the rain."
"Ha," says a stream of rain running down my gutters. "Since when have you loved?"
"That's not fair," comes a louder voice, followed by a more distant, "He's only human, we're rain. Leave him alone."
And the rain continues to speak to me. And I continue to listen.
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We are the same as plants, as trees, as other people, as the rain that falls. We consist of that which is around us, we are the same as everything.
~Gautama Buddha
