Ploinking

 Could it be?

Waking early in the dark my ears discern rain outside.

In a quick instant, my mind still emerging to conscious awareness. It cycles through the other possibilities that might deceive me---the air filter, the central air. Rain is the least likely, and I have been deceived and disappointed by false sounds of rain in the night.

My mind, slightly more aware, can focus on the details of the sound. It is indeed rain. A wave of joy fills my body and I take a deep breath of relief at the visitor.

As I lie in the dark listening to it, savoring its rare presence, I try to identify the multiple layers of sound---at least two or three distinct ones, one continuous, others sporadic.

How would I describe each layer, if I were not to say it is rain. A patter of quiet drums, and a low crackling fire of kindling wood. A staccato of ploinking metal bells with a final note of liquid resonance, distinct and individual.

One overwhelming wish fills my head---stay.

I struggle to stay awake, knowing that if I fall asleep again, the rain will have made its quiet goodbye, like a person in a dream who disappears when your back is turned. 

But the rain is still there when I wake again, insisting that today it must be heard and noticed. 

Rising at last I go into the kitchen. Here the rain sounds are the but mutated different, heard in a larger room without carpet, through larger windows. Again I begin to pick apart the layers of the score of the rain, triangulating in my mind with the sounds I heard in bed, increasing the dimensionality.

The kettle wants to be turned on but I am loathe to press the switch. When I do the rush of the heating water, usually so welcome to me, is an intruder in my years, like someone talking over a vital announcement on television.

When it ceases, and I pour the coffee, I take the heated cup into my room and sit as usual in the chair in which I am sitting. The rain sound now comes from the window next to me, a third point of triangulation. 

I do not turn on the space heater to feel the warm on my legs, for that would mute the symphony that is driving me to a momentary ecstasy in what otherwise would be the gloom of my thoughts. More, please.

Sitting in the dark, I feel myself a prisoner, an exile from the country of rain. The sounds I hear outside are like a letter from an old friend bringing greetings and news of my home.