he says the sky turns orange because the water in the storm is busy capturing city lights. on the farm everything goes black, they say. the clouds close in on everyone alike before the rain arrives in sheets, smacking against houses, sweeping down the streets. everything sounding out like the percussion section practice room. if you go out in that rain it feels heavy, pelting, and will sting your face if you let it. drivers pull over in that kind of rain rather than splash through torrential streams connecting ponds that were recently puddles. the whole world goes through the car wash, sheets of water slopping everywhere like a disastrous beaded curtain. oncoming traffic in inches of water hits your windshield like an honest to goodness wave from the ocean. the whole armageddon sky creeps overhead carrying the incessant fat droplets right along with it until suddenly the rain just isn’t coming down like that anymore. suddenly the sky is brighter, no longer a shade of doomsday. the rain makes a retreat no slower or faster that it came through, and you can watch it go. you can watch the retreating clouds still so black, still too heavy to stay off the ground. you can watch them continue breaking as they plummet toward earth, tendrils of dark sky following gravity, pelting the neighbors, now. the sky you’re under will change color again. lightening. the sun rejoins you, eventually.