Night rain

Night-time rain is a dream. In that soft, deeply felt Murakami sort of way.

It is almost never something seen. If I happen to wake in the middle of the night, it is in some way present in the velvet dark of my bedroom, sensed but not palpable. There is the sound of it. Either the patient, monotone drone of it, or the shifting, moving cadence akin to waves on a lazy shore, as sheets of rain slip across the windows and the roof. I am always struck at the clarity of it, as if when the rain knocks down the dust from the air, it even cleans the sound traveling by it.

It is moody, in an introspective way. Perhaps, I am interrupting.

There are also the smells. Wet stone and cement. Water-logged wood. Leaves refreshed. Secretive night-time blooms. I sense a newfound gentleness in the air. Somehow, these always find the way into my room, despite shut windows, doors, and air-conditioning. Just like the sounds, the fragrance of the rain penetrates the century-old brick without an effort. Perhaps, it doesn’t know it’s not supposed to.

Yet these sensations are always brief, and in a way, indistinguishable from the dreams of my slumber. The rain is the same primordial stuff as the nocturnal visions. When I wake, for a minute or two, my dreams don’t go very far, just as far the the windowsill, and before long, I am submerged again.

In the morning, the world is not the same as it was left at sunset. Asphalt and soil of the flower bed are darker, and this puts the colors of everything else into a brighter relief. All hues are more saturated, thicker. The world is painted with a bolder brush.

Yet just as the dreams, this is an illusion soon evaporated by the rising sun. Puddles retreat, and with them, a gray patina returns to the world’s attenuated palette.