The Rain: In Espana 1

“You have come for the lluvia ,” said Manolo, the barman, who had the face of a benevolent hawk. He did not ask it as a question.

She stopped the wheel entirely. The silence was sudden and absolute. Outside, the rain had ceased. The world was holding its breath. The Rain in Espana 1

The rain came not in drops but in sheets, then in walls, then in something closer to a vertical river. Within sixty seconds, I was blind. My jacket became a second skin of cold water. The dirt track I had been following turned to chocolate-colored mud that sucked at my boots with every step. I could no longer see the village behind me, nor the low hills ahead. I was suspended in a world of grey and water, a solitary creature at the bottom of an invisible ocean. “You have come for the lluvia ,” said

“Remembers what?” I asked.