The rain began not with a furious downpour, but with a sigh—a soft, persistent pattering that started sometime before dawn and simply decided to stay. Elara woke to the sound, a constant, gentle rhythm on her rooftop flat that made the world outside her window seem wrapped in cotton wool. The sharp edges of the city were gone, blurred into a watercolour painting of grey and green.
She made tea, the steam fogging the cold glass, and watched the day refuse to properly brighten. It was a day of cloudy spells, the weatherman had said. He’d been right. The rain would ease to a fine, hanging mist, the light would lift to a pearly grey, and for a fleeting moment, there was a promise of a break. But then, as if remembering a solemn duty, the clouds would regroup, darken, and release another soft, insistent shower.
The city moved differently on such a day. Umbrellas bloomed like black and floral mushrooms, bobbing in a slow, damp dance. People hunched their shoulders, their footsteps quicker, their gazes fixed on the slick pavement. The usual cacophony of horns and chatter was muted, replaced by the shushing sound of tires on wet tarmac and the drumming of water on awnings.
Elara had planned to go to the park, to sit on a bench with a book. Instead, she found herself in the old public library, a haven of warm, dusty air and the smell of ageing paper. The tall windows were streaked with rivulets of rain, turning the world outside into a shifting, distorted dream. She chose a novel at random and settled into a worn leather armchair, the only sounds the turning of pages and the distant, melancholic melody of the weather.
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