I actually wrote this for a class, and my BFF Lady-Spike edited it for me. -hug LS- She liked it, so I uploaded it.
The ancient, rusting red car drives on under the close ceiling of stony clouds. The branches of the tall, wasted trees reach up towards the sky. They are beaten down by the cold, pelting rain, and still they stretch towards the icy, unforgiving clouds constantly looming above them, reaching for the unattainable. Some limbs are glistening brown, like the mud below them, and damp, stripped of their green and fragrant needles by the rainfall. Mold clings to the bark and the mud, drowning everything in green. The green is a weird, constant color that somehow does little to make the bleak surroundings brighter. It is hard not to wonder what could survive in such a horrible, black place.
The clear, double-paned window is smeared with rain, so everything without is distorted and odd, like in the mirrors of a carnival funhouse. Buildings waver uncertainly through the misty glass like mirages; but of course it is too cold for mirages, and it is only the rain. Whoever painted these structures never thought of brightening their surroundings either, for they are plain, unremarkably painted, with dark trim and dark roofs. The flowers and shrubs planted to brighten the tiny main street are themselves dead, until the frigid air is warm with spring and the forbidding clouds have given way to a clear, sun-saturated blue sky. Such a season seems impossibly distant right now.
The rain continues to pound down relentlessly in invisible streaks, coming into sight only when it splatters against the black asphalt of the road and the hard gray concrete of the sidewalk. The air is thick with a smell unlike any other, the promise of mildew and stagnant water. The cold, damp air will seep through the walls, into the dull, boring buildings to chill the air within. There is no escape from it; the cold and the wet and the rain will always find a way. No one looks at it, or complains; the few people out and about simply hunch their shoulders and hurry on their way. Such things are inevitable here, and all they can do about it is ride the dreariness out, the way sailors would ride out a storm of drastic proportions.
Tires whisper against the street, throwing up sprays of frigid white water as they pass. It is impossible not to hear the bear-like roar of the engine and the splash of tires on the soaked asphalt. Somehow, the relentless pounding of rain against the roof and windows nearly drowns out all noise, permeating everything with its incessant, pulsing beat.
Someday the rain will go away, and the wish for that lingers in the faded old truck, somehow warming the air as the unfulfilled wish fills the tiny cab, a desperate longing for warmth and sunlight that may be enough to hold off the invisible rain and the crushing gray clouds until the seasons change once again.