Monsoon

This afternoon huge boulders of water crashed from the thunder above us and pounded the corrugated plastic in our office roof. Bass drum and fortissimo kettle drum competing for attention. Outside the window, rods of water were hitting the ground, exploding and bouncing back up. An elemental drama but it felt oddly empty. Something was not right. Why did such solid rain seem so one-dimensional? Then my senses remembered. Monsoon rain should carry the pungent smells of earth that has spent too long dry. It should liberate the pheromones of vegetation, reanimate decay, revive desiccation and fill your nostrils with flavour.

I breathed in deeply and there was emptiness. Urban tarmac has nothing to give back. A singer with no voice, a meal with no taste, a photographer with only a phone...