Ordinary Day

     She watches the world carefully through the transparent box of a bus shelter. The rain washes over the pavement and the streets are full of people rushing to some place or another, the city sounds blending into a distant background hum. ‘It has been the longest day,’ she reflects. It was the same routine day after day: stay up late to do homework, wake up early to face the day, attempt to find amusement in the unamusing and do it all over again later. It was like living a song on repeat. Strangers avoiding the rain duck into the shelter, crowding her into a corner. She gazes with them, waiting; watching.

     The raindrops start to fall harder, torrential sheets coming down from the pointed roof of the little box. She is transfixed by the display momentarily, watching the raindrops find their way to the ground from somewhere so high up. Winter inhabits the universe from December onwards, bringing the snow and cold. ‘Today is different,’ she realizes. She had not seen a rainstorm in many months.

     The music from her iPod skips suddenly to a Taylor Swift song. There’s something ‘bout the way the street looks when it’s just rained. She can’t help but want to smile as she realizes just how strange it is. As the sun peeks out from behind a storm cloud, she looks off into the distance, realizing just how long it had been since she has seen the streets this way. Everything glows. The skyscrapers seem to radiate back warmth and familiarity as they rise up to meet the sunshine fighting to illuminate the world. The day is no longer ordinary, no longer routine, and she finds herself unable to place why. All she knows is that in a few moments of glimpsing the familiar, everything has changed.