(Summer Competition, Editorial Board, 2nd Prize.)
A splash of water condenses dreamily in a blissful cloud. The mellow rays of the sun permeate the cool cotton wisps and kiss the water so it melts into smaller, pearly drops.
Rumbling, rocketing jolts of thunder sprawl across the sky, as the cloud grows heavy with anticipation. The drops are released in an explosion of light and sound, where the same, pitching sound waves speed them across the whirling sky.
The water rises in gaseous pleasure to inflate the spools of cotton. The heady intoxication of helium dizzies the floating molecules as they go up, up, up…
Tendrils of oozing pain, as a drop lands on thorny branches which are smoldering slowly. The effects of the cloudburst fade only to give way for torturous smoke, choking blankets of it, rising from the dying, mottled wood.
The fluffs of ice are soft, unimaginably and unequivocally soft. Gushes of singing wind rock the cloudy cradle as they hum of days gone by and rosy splendors. It is not possible, the comforted and shaping droplets think, to live in a better home.
Sliding across charred bark, the single dew drop satiates itself by lying on a last, tender leaf. Silently, she watches her comrades sacrifice themselves.
I promise you that in your wake, life and love will follow.
I promise you that your tender drops will nourish the land for years to come.
The raging thunder blasts rock the fabrications of the unsteady tree and the leaf wavers at the end of the breaking node. Alone in a shattered universe, a single drop closes her wet eyelashes with a speculative, misty sigh.