The Meteorologist
I am being mocked by a raindrop. I peer out my window while it sits contentedly on the branch of the tree, eye to eye, or whatever the equivalent of an eye is for a droplet of water. It has an advanced degree in meteorology and it instructs me to remain inside. I sense the smirk in its voice.
It should have been constructed in a different form, as a snowflake. It is the middle of January in the northeast for god's sake. It treats me with grave disregard. For it surely knows that I own several pairs of thermal underwear. And while my warmest attire may be grateful that it can remain inert, I for one am pretty ticked off. I deserve better treatment. I deserve respect.
I begin to raise my voice in response to the silent stare I am now receiving. I find its attitude to be more than a little condescending towards "moi."(yes, I took French a half century ago, and yes, I still retain a vocabulary "en francais" of close to a dozen words).
When I was in Paris on vacation (it was many years ago, so I am not bragging) I tried to impress the locals by saying "merci beaucoup" at the drop of a hat. "S'il vous plait" also was a constant, surrounded on both sides by a few hundred words of English. But I was certain that my lingual dexterity made a lasting impression on all those lucky enough to be subject to (and the object of) my attention. But this has nothing to do at all with the meteorologist.
Anyway, I know I have no right to direct my frustration at something that did not intentionally appear before me. Unless, of course, it did. I must consider the possibility that it knew exactly where it was landing. That this was a premeditated action and that it damn well was fully cognizant of precisely where I would be now.
Which is just where I did not want to be. Namely indoors. I wanted to be out in the snow, doing whatever people do when they are out in the snow. But that is extremely hard to do, I would venture to say nearly impossible, when the snow is rain.
I suppose the drop of rain has feelings and I apologize if I have offended it. I am not myself. But then again, who else would I be, could I be, should I be? Strike that. I am myself but not the myself that is myself's best version. And for that, I say mea culpa. Yes, I also took Latin for 1/4 of 7th grade. I could conjugate bonus, bona, bonum, although I had no idea what that meant and no earthly reason, as far as I could tell, to continue on in this study (although I did memorize "gaudeamus igitur" or something remotely like that, and still retain a large part of this tune and the words that accompany it. For what that is worth, which as close as I can figure out is as near to nothing as there is).
But I am really just feeling sorry for myself and taking my frustrations out on something that has caused me no harm. At least in a physical sense, although the emotional pain, as you can well note, is very deep and very real. So maybe I am being too hard on me and not hard enough on it.
Oh, it now appears my adversary has fallen off its perch. I wonder if it lies wounded on the ground. I wonder if it just leapt to its death from where it was so to avoid any further confrontation with me.
I fear I may have killed a drop of rain, with my incessant incendiary ramblings.
But you must understand it would have found a far better fate had it only been a flake of snow.
So, in retrospect, maybe it was not my fault at all. S'il moi plait. Him a culpa.