
So there I was, standing one day in the dazzling sunlight of the courtyard, combing my beard. A passing summer shower suddenly tattooed the dusty lawn. The air was filled with the fragrance of the heady mixture of earth, rain and sunlight. I stood happily in the courtyard, breathing in the smells waiting, like my herbs and jungles, for the grand arrival of the rains, thinking of nothing, my mind flying free like a floating leaf. There was a sudden gust of wind. Behind it came a luminous drizzle from the rainclouds that rushed across the sunny sky. I wanted to leap into the joyous wind, the rain and the fleeing clouds. ‘Here I come!’ I jumped, my arms lifted, to touch the clouds. ‘Aha! Aha!’ I screamed. ‘Take me too!’
-Paul Zacharia, The Garden of the Antlions.
