It’s raining.
It’s wet and dark, but not stormy. You can’t have everything I guess.
I can’t understand people who live in this city who hate the rain because it rains all the damned time. The environment reeks of the rainy West Coast, of moss, coniferous trees, and the smell of sea salt. The city smells alive in the rain, but it also smells of rotting vegetation. But I guess something’s alive amidst all that rot.
I’m walking along the False Creek sea wall, you can tell it’s gonna be especially wet today because not even the sea gulls are out in the rain, they’re all hiding under the trees. I don’t blame them, not good weather for flying. The grass is soaked through to a swampy extreme, the plants are either evergreens or amidst their winter hibernation, most people are inside right now, either in buildings or cars, either hiding from the rain or enjoying the company of others.
I’d say that I’m alone out here but that isn’t the case, there are loyal owners of loyal dogs in the park. Making sure their doggos get their daily exercise, either tossing bright neon balls or letting them play with other dogs. This park isn’t a proper dog park, but when it’s this wet any park is a dog park because no one else would willingly be out here. Well, except me.
Normally I find people during my walks intrusive. They’re like discordant notes in the harmony of the rain: too noisy, too big and moving. But I make special exception for these people, they aren’t out in the rain for themselves, they’re out to make sure their dogs stay healthy.
Big Golden Retrievers, Labs, and mutts with enough working dog in them they don’t care about the wet. I like how dogs seem to smile, that their eyes seem full of gratitude, that they have all the pure delighted excitement that doesn’t care about the little things. One of them runs up to me and drops a stick at my feet, I don’t know why the dog didn’t hand it off to the owner, but I appreciate the gesture.
“Human! Come play with me, I’m having fun, toss the stick!”
Not going to wait for the owner’s permission, nor will I keep the wagging tail attached to a happy smile waiting. I pick up the soaking wet stick and throw it into the middle of the field. The dog creates a spray as it does a 180 and bolts off to the puddle of a park the stick has landed in.
There’s a ghost of a grin on my face as I scrape the rotten bark off my hands. My serenity is broken but the gesture was not wasted because the dog is dancing with the stick, hopping from four legs to two doing a little victory dance no doubt enjoying the patters of water that splash and shape in the rain. I can’t help but feel a little happier at the dog’s joy.  
Before the owner can walk up to me I keep walking down the path to a nearby copse of trees. I can’t stay long, I don’t need the human interaction, I need to keep going, I need to find that serenity again before my own limited common-sense kicks in and I am driven back inside.

The rain sounds different when you’re surrounded by trees, the irregular staccato hitting ground and water. Water drops gather on leaves, bounces off leaves, and forms into drips in sizes large and small. The giant puddles in the path adds soft surfaces to the hard, rather than being cacophonous this feels heavenly. I am in the center of a symphony that no percussionist could mimic.
There’s a sodium light in the middle of the copse, glowing that familiar city orange, less disruptive to the eye than the blue-white of many street lights. The cone of light doesn’t produce many deep shadows, but adds warmth to the place, close to firelight minus the red-yellow flickering. I can see the drops that cross the cone of light, regular and irregular, like a musical sheet in real time, little waves and arcs that mimic the noise that hits the orange tinged puddle. Almost mimicking the sound the tiny waves made by rain drops meet, conflict, overpower, and are made again.
For once, there is no trash. No McDonalds wrappers, coffee cups, or other stray bits and pieces of a negligent humanity. It’s nice to pretend that others respect the rain as much as I do.
As I walk from the welcoming glow of the sodium light my eyes scan for shadows, there’s a primal instinct in it, a preparation for ambush, a paranoia that runs down the helix of my DNA that knows that darkness hides in darkness.
Of course there’s something in the shadows. What started with a vague shape becomes a human silhouette as it walks in front of my path. Aggressive stance, feet firmly planted in the ground, arms jutted forward, I don’t have the benefit of the light but I can almost feel the tension of its knuckles as it makes fists. Its eyes are glowing in the darkness, a violet flame that flickers with antagonism. The fire begins licking its skull like a wick burning away its shapelessness into a mouth like a furnace, the violet flame starts pouring from its orifices like liquid fire as it slowly marches toward me. Antagonism becomes malevolence as its form slowly immolates itself in its own hatred of me, a fist becomes an accusing finger as it moans like the last breath of a stabbing victim.
It wants me dead, it wants me punished, it wants me hurt beyond reason to be as crippled as itself. It will leave me a broken shell of a man, it will steal all my happiness, it will…
“Oh Fuck off!”