I want rain

I want rain. Not just piddly showers that are blown around with the wind, stinging your face as a thousand mosquitoes would. I want showers, the kind that no umbrella can really hope to keep out and any reasonable expedition outdoors means that a change of clothes is forthcoming.

If the clouds are going to keep the sun out, I want them coming in huge rolling banks, ones I can stare at with awe as I sit by the sea on a promenade. When it finally begins to pour, I want to retire to the Pizzeria nearby and watch it do so.

I don't even mind having to deal with leaky windows and muddy shoes, rain soaked clothes and the occasional sniffle. It seems like a small price to pay now, at least when compared to depressingly glooming days, no rain and biting wind. I may still moan about mud-splattered jeans and dirty floors and the occasional flood, but I'll take them over grey days and empty promises of an almost-monsoon.

Even a thunderstorm would be nice. There was a time I was really scared of both lightning and thunder, but that has given away to awe. A not-so-gentle reminder, perhaps, of the fury and power that nature can be capable of. And I miss the smell of the earth. Just once I would like that fragrance of freshly drenched soil, that even a concrete jungle like Male' can't hide.

Is it too much to ask for?