Catch the day.

I looked out the window and the western sky was a slate. Flat, tempered gray, deep and heavy, a storm looming up. There was still some light to the east, giving the water towers and other features a strange brightness to them, all the brighter for being up against such heavy clouds. Like something out of a Hopper painting, that kind of light.

Barely as soon as I noticed the gray, I heard a thunderclap.

Within five minutes, the downpour began.

Within six minutes, it was hailing. Ice falling from the sky in summertime - loud and heavy, so loud and heavy I didn't understand what I was hearing, and couldn't figure out what kind of raindrops made that sound. It turns out solid raindrops make those sounds.

The hail ended fast. Anything that heavy can't stay in the air for long. The rain kept falling, steady and endless, until it ended. About twenty minutes from the slate to the breaking.

It's still raining, softly. It's still thundering, far away. There's still flashes of lightning, briefly.

And so it passes on.