The Clouds Do Weep.

I stood with my back against the railing, on the platform of the ladder well on the observation tower, my head casually glancing around the perimeter. The snake of streetlights winding their way through the mountainous terrain glow heavily in the heavy desert night's air. Tomorrow's going to be a hot one. The warm windy breeze that flows towards the sea is a telltale sign, one that I've learned in just a few days. The drastic increase in temperature foretells our fate come the summer months. Around me every is still, aside from the constant flow of solitary cars passing every couple minutes. Merely 40 minutes into my day, and my eye lids are heavy, though coffee is on its way. The shift is long, the hours are tough, but vital to our success. Again consummated by the thickness of the air, I notice that unlike most nights in the desert, the luminous rays of moonlight that normally splash the nearby mountains are absent. Instead dark clouds invaded the peninsula, like waves of Crusaders making bountiful charges, across this same land, toward their objective. The air was most definitely different tonight, and although lacking the pre-rain smell I so vividly recall from my younger days, the change of speed and coolness of the breeze made me venture to guess that rain was on the way... but quickly refuted the assertion because, well, I was sitting in the middle of the desert. Focused on the stillness of the land I observe around me, and partially lost in thought, I hear what sounds like the march of an army poised in the distance, the crackling of drums, and the stomp of trained feet.

Certainly going crazy, dehydrated perhaps.

Then it hit me, quite literally: a solitary drop of rain on my nose. Snapping back to reality, I look at the cement walkway on our fortified outpost and notice drops of water everywhere, from out of nowhere. The pounding of rain on the aluminum roofs of our improvised living quarters provides for the army in my thoughts. Loud, quick, and hard, then suddenly... gone. As quickly as it came, it disappeared. The thirsty air of the desert appeared again instantly and dried all evidence of rain from the earth. I sat there blankly looking at the arid tundra around me, the dusty sand around me as dry as it was at mid-day. Maybe I imagined it all. Minutes later, my team leader exited the Tactical Operations Center and entered the kitchen to fetch me a cup of coffee. After pouring me a cup, he made his way up the steep ladder well below me, passing off the freshly brewed, black coffee. Finally, some caffeine to wake me up. On his way back down, he asked me if a loud truck had bellowed it's way past our location recently. The sound of the rain on the roof, my only proof. I'm not crazy after all.

Disclaimer: No, I'm not losing it. This is my true recollection of events, and is fun to write about, because it's out of the ordinary for me, in my current situation. It was just rain, and it does rain here, but very rarely. More extraordinary than the rain itself is how bewildered I was because of it. Like a kid in a candy store. I find it amazing how the human mind works, and like sharing experiences of mine like this, no matter how insignificant it actually is. The rain lasted probably 15 seconds in all, but observations as acute and meaningless as this will hopefully be helpful in future experiences... let's just hope a little rain is the most dramatic of my future experiences.

Picture today is of the Main Supply Route running past my outpost on the night it rained. Nothing too exciting else wise.