Sunday, July 26, 2009

A Warm Encounter Under the Cold Rain

cloudy sky, cloudy, cloud, nimbus could, ready to rain, clody storyShe hurried to go out of the grocery store. It's her usual midweek grocery purchases. She's in her bicycle like the rest of the people in Netherlands. She was in a hurry. She just saw the clouds closing in and getting heavier right above her zone. 

Netherlands is a place where four seasons can happen many times in a day. In a matter of minutes, the weather can be summer-like, winter-like, spring-like or autumn-like.  Even the weather forecasts, no matter how scientific they can be, most of the time cannot precisely predict what's going to be the weather for a certain day. Difficult. That's it.

She fixed her heavy purchases behind her bike. She put some in a free box picked from free boxes the grocery store offered. The rest, she placed in aplastic bag that she has for groceries and some others inside the empty space in her shoulder bag.


She was so sure that rain would fall in a matter of minutes and her house is still 5 minutes away.  "Darn! I must really hurry!" She murmured to herself. She went cycling so fast as her heavy groceries and small foldable bicycle could allow until she gets to the crossing. Like a bad fate, the light turned yellow-orange and she could not cross. She cursed under her breath but she could not do nothing but to wait. Worse came to worst as the rain pured heavily. She was soaked in a few seconds of heavy and thick drops of rain.

It seemed like forever until the traffic light turned green. She didn't know why but she was there for more than a few minutes. Usually the light changes in amatter of 60 seconds but this time, it took a lot of time. Another biker arrived. He's soaked in the rain too. "Ah Dutch weather", he tried to open a conversation with her. She only smiled at him. She was trying to look attentively at the lights expecting them to turn green.

"You've been here for long? I mean, in this crossing? Seems that the light doesn't work properly?"  He asked her.

"Indeed. Seems that it's broken". 

"Oh not again."

---To be continued...---