by Amara Aishat
Kay held her palm still as the drop of rain sat there like it didn’t quite belong to the world.
It didn’t evaporate. It didn’t fall.
It waited.
“That’s new,” she whispered.
The voice did not answer immediately.
Instead, the sky shifted again, slowly, carefully, like something turning its attention fully toward her for the first time.
Clouds stopped being weather.
They became aware.
Kay stepped back from the cliff edge, her breath tightening.
“I didn’t mean to be noticed,” she said.
A low hum moved through the air, almost like thought forming into pressure.
“You were never unnoticed,” the voice replied. “Only unmeasured.”
The wind returned, but wrong.
It didn’t rush or roar. It circled her, gentle and deliberate, like something learning the shape of her.
Kay’s fingers curled.
“I don’t steal,” she said. “I borrow. There’s a difference.”
“Borrowing implies return,” the voice said.
A pause.
Kay didn’t answer this time.
Far out over the ocean, lightning flickered without sound.
The storm wasn’t forming anymore. It was waiting for her.
“I can stop,” Kay said quickly. “I can leave it alone.”
The air softened slightly, as if considering her words.
Then:
“You misunderstand.” The clouds parted further. For the first time, Kay felt it, not just above her, but around her. The storm wasn’t in the sky. It was layered into everything. Her breath, motion. and into the space between thoughts.
And it had been watching her long before tonight.
“You did not take from the storm,” the voice said quietly. “You translated it.”
Kay froze.
“That’s impossible.”
“Yet you stand inside it.”
A pulse of wind moved through her, not touching her body, but passing through something deeper. Memories flashed, moments she thought were luck. Rain arriving just in time. Lightning missing her by seconds. Winds shifting when she needed escape.
Kay took a step back again.
“Why me?” she asked.
The sky darkened.
“Because you listen without asking permission,” the voice said. “And the storm has always wanted to be understood.”
The rain in her palm finally moved.
It sank into her skin.
Kay gasped, but there was no pain. A thousand distant storms brushing against her mind like distant thoughts she could almost translate if she tried hard enough.
“I can feel it,” she whispered.
“Yes,” the voice said.
A long silence followed.
Then, softer:
“And now it can feel you back.”
The wind steadied.
The storm did not leave.
It stayed.
Waiting, not as weather anymore, but as something that had finally been heard. Kay stood on the cliff edge, no longer just borrowing anything. Something had begun to speak through her. And for the first time, she wasn’t sure who was answering.
About the Author
Amara is a writer, artist, and musician who finds inspiration everywhere. She loves experimenting with melodies and letting improvisation guide her. Creativity is her favorite language, and she’s fluent in all its forms.