This day is heavy with the burden of water. It drips from the canopy, sliding down leaves and tree trunks into soft, welcoming lichen. Up ahead in the unkempt fecundity is a silhouette that can only be you, alone in the forest, like me. Laying thick between us the grey and green atmosphere obscures not only your image, but my will to call to it. Despite myself, I watch closely to see what the outline of you will do among the trees. As if in direct response to my earnestness, a lazy current of air that could not be called a breeze carries ever-denser haze into my line of sight. The green dims, succumbing to grey. I chide myself for bothering to adjust my eyes when I could easily look away. Instead, you fade as I squint, then disappear, wandering away behind the broad trunk of a tall pine as if into the end of your own film. I wonder if you meant to do that, dramatic. I continue watching for any sign of your direction until I am finally left without a choice. I have no idea where you’ve gone. I realize this gladly.

Mosquitoes love the damp. I offer them death by my hand, one last caress. I don’t count my kills but I do take some pride. Nature tends toward balance; creators and destroyers. Here are pollinators out in equal number, confusedly approaching my brightly colored undershirt in the grey. The yellow fabric peaks from dark sleeves, and at the collar, so that I have to lean down to find pink petals, meek and cowering under the all-wet green, then coax the bright butterflies off of me toward the nectar. Everything here is stimulated by the rain. I know you do not feel that way, but I don’t know what to do about that. Unless you need help moving to your next life, I suppose. Or a flower.

That you are currently up ahead of me ensconced in drama is more a marvelous, bad joke than anything. I wonder if you’d laugh with me about it. Did I ever tell you about the time I bought that pack of ladyfingers for you, but also one for myself? You enjoyed them as ever, all in one go. I even helped you eat yours, and watched you share it, all while I had my own, secreted away. You never wanted to take a dessert slowly, or even quietly. I guess that’s a thing I’ve enjoyed: you can really stoke a whole lot of happy excitement into one moment. And you’re good at sharing.

That was the beginning of my dessert stash, which I have since kept whether you were nearby or not. Even today there’s chocolates in my pocket. I realize that a little sugar boost might help you cope with the grey, so it turns out there is something I can do. The gulf between us is wider than ever though, filled with fog and spiderwebs and slippery moss over deteriorating logs. I don’t know how to find you without calling out abruptly into this silence so heavy it feels deep, as if there are suddenly hundreds of miles between us, or layers that would shatter catastrophically in the wake of my shout. I stretch my fingers through the wet air to tickle a fern before looking up again to where I saw your silhouette. The lush variety of greens surrounding that clearing is wholly visible, leaves and fronds shining wet, not at all disturbed by signs of humanity. Squinting again, I wonder whether, in this weather, you were. I have no idea where you’ve gone, and gladly.