The Song of the Storm
By: Shariq Ansari

The Listener walked slowly to the edge of the cliff and sat there for a long time.  The 
ground was covered in grass.  Lush, green grass.  Everything was silent.  

Then there was the rain.

The first raindrop hit the Listener's face without a sound.  Then, gradually, more began to 
fall.  He began to hear the rain now.  The raindrops hit the leaves, thousands of them 
singing.  Yes, the raindrops were singing.  They hit the leaves and sang their song.  They 
sang "hiss" through the trees.  They sang "plop" into the puddles where they were 
collecting.  They hit the Listener's face with a "pit-pat."  The sound of rain was 
everywhere.  The Listener listened to the song, its intricate rhythm and strange voices.  

Then there was the wind.

First, the wind pushed through the valley and up to the cliff.  He could hear it whooshing 
past his ear.  As it became stronger, it began to whistle.  The wind was also singing, 
joining the raindrops in their chorus.  The sounds of whooshes and whistles were being 
intermixed with the hisses, plops, and pit-pats.  The music was swelling.  The Listener 
listened to the beautiful, haunting melody of the wind.  

Then there was the thunder.

The thunder came slowly.  First there was a low rumbling, a deep voice chanting softly.  The 
Listener tried to make sense of this strange chant, trying to find a rhythm in the voice, 
listening for a rhyme.  The voice grew louder and softer without rhythm.  The chant had no 
rhyme.  All the while the wind and the rain sang over it, paying to it no attention.  The 
Listener listened calmly, realizing that something would soon happen.

And it did.

The wind and the rain changed their rhythm in a subtle manner.  There were accents on beats 
where there weren't before.  There were rests in the rhythm where there weren't before.  The 
thunder joined into the cadence, adding an intricate rumbling.  There was a pulse to this 
music.  The rain began to sing stronger.  The wind's melody began to pick up, increasing in 
tempo.  The thunder's rumble began to crescendo.  The Listener knew what would come next.

There was a flash of light and a booming crash echoed throughout the valley.  The thunder 
bellowed its song to the world, and the Listener listened.  The thunder called out again, 
and the wind answered it, singing and swirling through the trees and the valley.  Again, the 
thunder sang, and this time the rain answered it by singing stronger than before.  All three 
sang their song together, creating a beautiful amalgamation of sounds.

And the Listener sat there for a long time, listening to the Song of the Storm.