The drop strikes the ground. It falls from a broken crack, mirrored on the ceiling— the drop strikes the ground. With a dry thud it claims its echo, resonating to all four sides, and reminds me, in the silence of this dim refuge, of what my heart longs to feel: that I am only a man— alone, naked, and vulnerable, standing upon a rock. With a halting rhythm each drop clings to the ground, one after another, and the broken trail of its echo follows every fall. Here inside it does not rain— there is only silence, the naked man, the drop, the echo, and the rock. And this musical atony of drops— each followed by more drops and echoes— tells me that out there the storm has not yet cleared, and that, in time, the sun will push the leaden clouds away, leaving the most beautiful ones— long and white, floating high, filled with light. And then the blue sky will return, and the drop will fall silent, its echo gone, in the half-light. And the naked man will not forget that dull, dry blow— the muffled sound, swallowed whole, as the drop struck the ground— and I will always remember that I am only a man, alone, naked, and vulnerable, standing upon a rock.
