I leave the sun and I am on the black stretched dome, born and dying on it in the same white flash. A skin of nylon, pulled tight over bent ribs, held up over the warm creature's head against the falling water. I strike the wet curve and I am the shine along its edge, the slick highlight running the seam, and then I am gone into the eye of the one who owns it, which is where I was always going.
The creature is doing the thing I have heard about. Waiting. It stands under the dome and looks up and does not move, letting the water hammer the nylon, letting drops crawl the ribs and hang and fall, and it stays, it stays, it counts something on the little glowing square in its other hand.
They say minutes pass under there. Whole minutes, standing still, hoping the water will stop. I cannot picture stopping. I cannot picture the inside of one moment, and here is a creature living in the inside of many, on purpose, patient, dripping.
I glint off the puddle at its feet and I glint off the wet toe of its shoe and these are the same glint, I am both, I am the whole bright rim of the storm at once. The dome is a small dark sky the creature built to disagree with the big one. Behind it, the clouds have eaten my brothers whole, the ones who left the sun with me and never reached anyone.
I reach the eye. That is the leaving. That is the arriving.
Bright.