~
The last day of the year-long drought had finally come to a simmering end.
Across the wide deserts a black thundercloud grew in size; mounting on itself until it towered over the dry, dusty landscape like a monster.
A gale of wind rose in a howl, picking up great sweeps of sand and small stones and tossing them for miles around: caught up in the searing crosswind. Lightning flashed, and deep, gravelly rumbles of thunder bubbled in the chest of the brewing storm. The sun was hidden behind a dark stretch of whip-lashed clouds: and a thick blanket of menacing shadows fell over the cracked earth.
All over the sparse desert, its residents sought shelter: grateful for the incoming rain, but frightened by the size of the expanding clouds, and by the striking talons of lightning which raked the air with a smoky, burning scent and seemed so close it made the ground sizzle.
For miles east, north, west, and south: sand and stone was flung in a wave of wind--a sandstorm of great proportions. With no trees, and with the land being so flat: nothing stopped the wind from racing with a fierce pleasure across the dry-lands.
And then, in the cradle of the monumental stormcloud: the first bowel of rain began to leak towards earth--the first taste of liquid the desert had drank in a long while. At first it was a calm shower, and the creatures of the desert rejoiced in the rain, feeling it fall onto their backs and faces: cool, and sweet. A heavy contrast to the hot, burning, unforgiving sun that had beat down upon them for the last year.
But then the storm turned nasty. Lightning flashed, and scoured the ground into deep black rents. The rainfall strengthened until it felt more like ice shards hissing down from the heavens in furious torrents.
Heavy, dart-hearted thunder rolled through the bellies of the fat, shadowy clouds--they hung like dark, misshaped stones stacked on top of each other throughout the air, hovering. And with the thick gray sheets of rain falling from their insides they seemed practically ready to cave in towards the earth.
The sand which had been formerly blowing outwards was sucked in towards the main cloud formation in a whirl; mud splattered, and the ground was quickly flooded by syrupy, grimy puddles and sinking quicksand’s that made the ground move, and slide until it seemed unsafe.
This master-storm wasn’t stagnate, either. Born on the most powerful winds of the past two centuries it progressed towards the east-lands, leaving a wreckage of land and floodwaters behind it. By the time it passed over them: the deserts were no longer there; instead, a good mass of the west had become a barren, muddy lake.
Across the wide deserts a black thundercloud grew in size; mounting on itself until it towered over the dry, dusty landscape like a monster.
A gale of wind rose in a howl, picking up great sweeps of sand and small stones and tossing them for miles around: caught up in the searing crosswind. Lightning flashed, and deep, gravelly rumbles of thunder bubbled in the chest of the brewing storm. The sun was hidden behind a dark stretch of whip-lashed clouds: and a thick blanket of menacing shadows fell over the cracked earth.
All over the sparse desert, its residents sought shelter: grateful for the incoming rain, but frightened by the size of the expanding clouds, and by the striking talons of lightning which raked the air with a smoky, burning scent and seemed so close it made the ground sizzle.
For miles east, north, west, and south: sand and stone was flung in a wave of wind--a sandstorm of great proportions. With no trees, and with the land being so flat: nothing stopped the wind from racing with a fierce pleasure across the dry-lands.
And then, in the cradle of the monumental stormcloud: the first bowel of rain began to leak towards earth--the first taste of liquid the desert had drank in a long while. At first it was a calm shower, and the creatures of the desert rejoiced in the rain, feeling it fall onto their backs and faces: cool, and sweet. A heavy contrast to the hot, burning, unforgiving sun that had beat down upon them for the last year.
But then the storm turned nasty. Lightning flashed, and scoured the ground into deep black rents. The rainfall strengthened until it felt more like ice shards hissing down from the heavens in furious torrents.
Heavy, dart-hearted thunder rolled through the bellies of the fat, shadowy clouds--they hung like dark, misshaped stones stacked on top of each other throughout the air, hovering. And with the thick gray sheets of rain falling from their insides they seemed practically ready to cave in towards the earth.
The sand which had been formerly blowing outwards was sucked in towards the main cloud formation in a whirl; mud splattered, and the ground was quickly flooded by syrupy, grimy puddles and sinking quicksand’s that made the ground move, and slide until it seemed unsafe.
This master-storm wasn’t stagnate, either. Born on the most powerful winds of the past two centuries it progressed towards the east-lands, leaving a wreckage of land and floodwaters behind it. By the time it passed over them: the deserts were no longer there; instead, a good mass of the west had become a barren, muddy lake.
~
