A Handful of Rain

Time is like that. A handful of rain slips easily through the fingers. A moment is there and then it is gone. Something that feels solid and heavy in the hand seeps away until nothing remains, but a memory of what could have been. She had thought she had something substantial in her hand, some sort of life that would be solid and real, but when she opened up her hand and looked, it was empty. Not a trace of anything of that life she thought she had remained. All she had was that memory of once holding something in her hand that was now gone, gone and lost forever.

She looked up at the sky, at the way the clouds, heavy with rain, lumbered their bulk above her. She looked down at the ground, sodden with rain and dotted with puddles. Here she was, caught between the sky and the ground and holding out an empty hand. An empty hand that had once felt so full.

Then she discovered a handful of tears was much like a handful of rain. Tears too, though, she found, not long after, slip just as easily through the fingers as rain, leaving the same nothing behind.

So she turned, looked back at the space where that life that was once hers had been, before turning back and walking away, walking away from those swollen rain clouds that still filled the sky.