September Showers

They come in numbers, pattering against the window.

Drip, drip, drip.

The sloshing of September showers slides down the glass in silky rivers. It sticks to the smooth surface, hazing and shadowing the landscape beyond. A soft, determined symphony echoes as droplets spring and splatter across the glass.

A single drop lands with a perfect pat. A round pearl, diamond-like and glittering. A little jewel of air and light sparkling and decorating the windowpane with a fragile beauty.

It waits, for only a moment, before slinking down the pane. It rolls deftly across the glass, leaving speckled dewdrops in its wake. Wriggling and writhing, it descends further away from the sky that birthed it, drawing nearer to the ground below. Down, down the surface of the pane it goes. It pools on the window ledge, swelling and expanding, before tumbling off the edge into the mud below.

There, it festers and oozes into the unknown terrain. It soaks into every surface; congealing and thickening with the Earth’s excrement of slime and sludge. It morphs into thick puddles that soak and penetrate.

The crystal hue of each little drop dissolves with their first lick of the Earth. Each perfect bubble bursts into nothing. I watch the little drops, ceaseless in their stampede. I sit and listen to an endless song of dancing, swirling, and shattering.

Drip, drip, drip.

Words + Images: Ella Boxall, she/her