Tonight.

I heard the rain pouring out it's heavy heart onto the streets and alleyways tonight.

I stepped out onto my porch, watching the drops of water speed downward so fast, yet so quietly.

I looked out into the somewhat quiet city night, into my little corner of the alleyway, looking at the streams of water and it's criss-crossing across the imperfectly flat pavement, down to the sewers. I stared at the glow of the lamps, how they radiate slightly behind curtains of falling drops of water.

Heavy rain is so beautiful. At night, it steals my heart more than anything. The cool air, the glossing of everything it touches, the feeling on your skin, it's taste, and the way it brings out the smells, and the sound... oh, the sound. It's the most beautiful music I've ever heard. It is so loud and seemingly so quiet at the same time. Each drop is a minute sound, and the drops are innumerable. It's like a thousand whispers at once. I could listen to it's song forever.

But like all songs, it's only momentary, and it's gone.

The rain let up, and the magic left me.

The night was still cool, the air still beautiful, the sound still present... but fainter. Like the ending of a dream, when consciousness begins to seep in... it's the end of a moment. And it is fleeting. As with everything else in this universe, it gives way to the only constant, that of change.

I retreated inside to write these words down, to share with everyone who reads this what I've experienced, but also to remember that moment. To live and experience that is to release my mind into freedom. All pain and sorrow melts away and clears.

Though the moment is gone, I have the memory, so that I may crawl back inside of it.

When my mind has raged too hard, when my thoughts have derailed too deep into agony, I will have a place of peace, of serenity, of joy.

It is my retreat. My sanctuary.

Have you ever seen the rain?

I tried to calm my heart, to slow my breathing, to clear my thoughts. The rays of the sun were gently reaching for my face through dancing trees. It was calmingly peaceful, but mindfully distracting.

I had to clear my thoughts. You cannot force the world to resonate with your mind, you must let your mind resonate with the world.

I pushed thoughts out of my mind, I allowed myself to relax. I searched for not emptiness, but thorough and complete singularity. Udder surrender to everything around me.

I ceased worrying about those that were going to die. I no longer fretted over the consequences of my failure. I omitted fear, for losing, I omitted love, for those I feared losing, and my hate, for those who would lose me my loved ones.

I opened everything I was to everything that is.

I let the entire universe in, and my entire mind out.

And so it happened.

I could see between the smallest spaces, the smallest instances of time. I was open to the world, and it was open to me.

My eyes flew open, and I ran. I ran and I ran and I ran. My feet moved through the dirt, and the trees began to move. The world was opening. The universe was opening. I let my mind unravel further, and I could feel these thick vines of reality slipping from my body, trying to hold on.

The world continued to shift before my eyes.

Reality continued to slip, I continued to run.

The ground rippled beneath my feet.

A bright white light opened before me, and the whole world left from view.

I continued to run, to move between the molecules and the atoms and the stars and the thoughts of every single mind.

I focused on a single mind, one single soul that would flutter it's whimper across the eternal ocean of raging memories, ideas, and emotions. Eventually, throughout my searching, I could feel my thoughts resonate with whom I was looking for.

So I dove back into reality, ready to die to try and save those I loved.

(And I did save them, though not without a heavy price. Nothing is free.)