“It’s going to rain soon!”

Joshua twisted his head back quickly to the door where the voice came. His mother was pulling her hair back into a bun as she nodded towards the sky overhead.
With his hands still covered in paint, he cupped his right over his eyebrows and looked up at the sky. The sun was still shining but he could see the clouds starting to roll in.
As he dropped his gaze to the horizon he could see a smother of grey slowly beckoning forward.
The wind around him was picking up, but he remained steady as he looked down and rubbed his arm, checking to see if any flecks of rain had started coming down without him noticing. With a look at his mum, he went back to the drying green stains over the makeshift crate he was working on. The colour was perfectly lined by brush strokes and was almost finished, but with a crease in his eyebrows forming it was clear he didn’t want to risk the rain ruining what still needed to be dried.
He licked his dry lips and tasted salt. Even though it looked easy enough, it had taken some time and he’d been under the sun for hours, sweat was still dripping down his forehead and under his arm.
He wiped what he could, careful not to get paint on his face and looked over his shoulder to the now empty doorway.
His mum had gone back inside…her vocal memo still rung in his ears as he turned back to the work in front of him.
Finding two dry spots on the crate, he picked it up and walked it over to the pergola ten feet away. He was careful to make sure it didn’t get paint on the white wall it slightly rested on…if it did he’d get an earful and a half for the rest of the week.
Making his way back he could see the shade circling down from the clouds ahead.
It was weird how quickly everything changed. The sun was still beating and the heat was still warming to his singlet…but there was wind whispering in the trees above now, and he could feel the ever so slight change in the weather around him.
Taking advantage of the now cool shade in front of him, Joshua dropped to the grass in one last huff and puff.
The grassy spikes prodded his toes and he could feel its acupuncture on his thighs and hands. He looked over to where he was sitting not two minutes before. There were still flecks of green paint that could be seen on the already green grass. It looked artificial and out of place…but somehow reminded him of the work he’d put in.

Joshua grabbed the large glass bottle of water that had now been baked by the sun. In the last chance to cool off his skin, he pulled off the bandanna that kept the hair out of his eyes and soaked it briefly with a little bit of the water.
He slapped and tied it around his forehead again as he guzzled the last few mouthfuls of what was left.

Draining the last of it, he slumped his head into one of the patches of sun that were left.

He slowly dropped down, eyes closing ever so slightly onto the grass under him. The familiar sharpness of it dug into his neck and hair, tickling at his ear.
It has been years since he’d done this. Just laid on the ground and enjoyed weird serinty. Even his parents couldn’t annoy him when he found comfort like this. Even when it rained, they had to yell and scream for him not to get sick, pulling and twisting his ear while he was fully soaked and smattering the wooden floors with mud and wet grass.

He smiled softly and squinted his eyes open, raising his eyebrows at what he saw. The clouds were starting to make way again. Sun starting to pour in and down.

It quickly warmed the deep brown skin in his face. He could feel the itchiness of the sweat slowly fade away as everything began to come at ease.

Then shade…and nothing but shade.
Moments passed as he lay there, watching the clouds get darker and darker, leaving less and less sun to peer through.

The dark grey puffs in the sky started to roll by and Joshua watched as little droplets narrowly missed him.
AS the clouds got darker, He watched them in slow motion as each and every drop started to hit its target…his forehead, his cheek, his neck and his feet.
Slowly his body began to feel agitated.
A tight ball formed in his chest as he slipped the hands from underneath his head and by his side.
It was telling him to get up and go inside. To forget about the sun that was just there…to know that rain was coming instead.
But he didn’t. In a flash, his mind saw a young brown boy yelling and cheering in a downpour….he saw him waddle through a doorway, drenched in sky water and smiling sheepishly to his now furious parents.

Joshua let the tight ball fade as the droplets kept coming. As it grew heavy, he felt his fingers twitch from the cold. Breathing out once again…he smiled. He could feel the water on his teeth as he watched the clouds spit down on him…unafraid of the downpour it might bring…