WriteOn! 2024

1st Place - Megi Hamza

Prompt: Describe what it feels like to be a raindrop falling in a thunderstorm.

A circle. That’s all there is to life. Yesterday I was holding hands with my kind on the Atlantic Ocean and now I’m here, but at the same time I am not. As long as time exists, there can be no forever. There can be no certain moment, just a series of blurry instants …

 

And I am falling. I feel extremely irrelevant. But I am still here and my being collides with that of the others and together we are strong. Together we are powerful. I am fuzzy and light, but at the same time I feel crushing heaviness. It’s like that feeling you humans experience when you see a beautiful girl, that never ending warmth in the pit of your stomach when you fall in love. That’s how it’s like. That’s how being free is like.

 

I look around. We are all dressed the same. We have all been taught to act the same and follow a certain endless path. And here we are tonight individually united, falling as the gods dance to our music. And as they have wine and share a joke or two, they release their power. They want everyone to know how loud their thunder can be. And we try to dodge. Now we are dancing.

 

Me and my fellow raindrops, we have been through different things. As our infinite fall drags on and on, we share stories of our own. One of them was in a boiling can. The owner of this boiling can was making soup. Another one was in a lake, and a little boy threw a plastic bag on it. We don’t take it personally though; it’s just how humans are. They are so unpredictable.

 

My journey to the ground seems indeed an adventurous voyage. I meet birds and insects, but they are too shy to share anything. Out of the blue I sense that freedom feeling bottling up. The feeling of the crash collides in me. But it doesn’t hurt. It never does. The crushing sense breaks into a million tiny copies of me. Now they are my friends that have been through different things. I don’t feel protective of them. They were never mine. I am part of the circle and so is every inch of me. So are they.

 

The loud roars of the gods don’t come to a stop. The lying yellowish light in them going on and off as if it’s supposed to frighten anybody. As if it’s something more than electricity.  

 

Although I am a tiny puzzle in a never ending jigsaw mosaic, I do not belong. I am in a circle. There is no forever. I did not choose this. Tomorrow I might be in a steaming river or in someone’s toilet. Wherever the circle takes me. I might even be in your soup! But don’t worry. I will not go away; I never do. I will be part of another thunderstorm. When I think about it-because the circle does give me a freedom to think-humans are not that different. That’s for you to reread and figure out. Maybe everything in this universe is a damned never ending cycle. I am tired.

I do pity the humans though-at least for them it stops.

 

Today I was a falling raindrop in a thunderstorm. Tomorrow ….