Summer Shower

It was incessant. Less of a pitter patter of droplets; more of a drum roll that seemed to go on forever. Full bodied, heavy drops in their millions, battering their way through the canopy of summer leaves in the thicket. Pounding down on to the leather of the bush hat pulled down tight on to the shaven pate that served to contain what might be loosely termed a brain. A brain that had been battered by too much alcohol and more than a little insecurity. It was heavy summer rain; a downpour sudden and sharp that had descended upon the walker almost without warning. Now the woodland floor seemed to steam, a mist forming above the friable leaf mould, releasing the pungent sweet smell of decades of woody decay. As the walker continued tramping along the track the sharp shower waned. It was drifting on to terrorise other unprepared flora and fauna. Rabbits running to the sanctuary of their hedge-line warren. The ever-present rooks forced to perch, bedraggled with the glossy black orbs of their eyes surveying the watercolour blur of the countryside around them. Bracken pummelled like a forest in miniature, the green of its foliage freshly glossed by the downpour. The drumming in the wood now much less frenetic, more the gentle beat of brushes stirring the surface of a snare drum, then dwindling to the drip-drop-drip of a thousand leaky bathroom taps. As the sky cleared and spindly fingers of sunlight teased their way through the canopy, backlighting the bright green leaves that bobbed in the gentle summer breeze that now replaced the percussive rain.