Forty Days
She couldn't help wondering if it would ever stop raining. As soon as she thought it, she noticed how strange and foreign the thought seemed, yet she couldn't keep herself from thinking it nonetheless. This, from the girl who loved the rain, loved standing outside and letting herself be drenched instantly so that then it wouldn't matter that the rain was still coming down. She was young, certainly, but the contradiction was not lost on her. It was almost funny, and she almost smiled to think of it.
Almost.
Instead, she looked around the shed, their refuge from the pouring rains. She saw on the faces of the others their loss, their worry, their grief. She saw it all and was quiet, unsmiling.
As she continued to inspect the place, she spotted a small window off to one side. She got to her feet and approached it, peering out into the storm. Past the sheets of water nearly obscuring her view, she could see hazy shapes. The world outside, and everything sodden and dripping. Again she remembered standing in the rain, letting the water wash over her until her clothes were saturated and the drops simply fell from her, and it didn't matter how long it kept raining.
It mattered now, she knew. Shivering in her wet clothes, she frowned, gazing out the window once more. She could see, indistinctly, a couple of animals. They might have been squirrels, but she couldn't see them well enough to know. She watched as they ran closer, clearly looking for higher ground, for shelter. She wished she could help them, but there was nothing she could do. That seemed to always be the case. Unable to help the family when the dust came. Unable to help the baby, or the not-a-baby, whatever it had been. And now, unable to do something so simple as give the squirrels a place to run to.
Her frown deepened, and she turned from the window. Sinking to the floor, she hugged her legs and closed her eyes, listening to the rain pound the roof of the shed in a relentless, never-ending staccato.