Chasing Rain

At first, it all looked promising. Turns out it wasn’t for me.

It started on a typical summer day. I waited for the familiar grey blanket to settle over the sky — not exactly a rarity in these parts, more like an endless resource — and drove out into the open fields near a quiet village. Left the car on the roadside and walked into the grass.

You could see the clouds stretch from edge to edge.

The sky looked almost too neat: soft, dense texture, like someone had carefully tucked the horizon under a thick cotton cover.

I stood there in the open field and watched it slowly tear apart. The clouds drifted and broke into ragged, heavy shapes — the kind that promise rain any minute. It felt like everything was finally lining up.

Except the rain was already happening — just elsewhere. On the horizon, above a dark strip of forest, I could clearly see it: slanted streaks, a proper curtain of water falling from the sky. It just refused to come any closer.

After half an hour of watching it stay out of reach, I moved — toward it, or at least what I thought was toward it.

Didn’t help.

Eventually, I gave up and headed back to the car with that familiar feeling that nature had outplayed me again. I was just inside when — almost on cue — the first timid drops hit the windshield.

The sky above the village quickly darkened.

But I was already too tired to step out again. So I never really saw the rain itself. I just got the shot: drops on the glass, the silhouette of the village behind them.

I suppose the chase worked out. Just not in the way I expected.

Soutnern Urals, Russia.
June, 2009.
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