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of salt on your sunburnt skin, with the feel of the wind starting to whisper through the
scorched long grass, murmuring of doom and delight for thousands as the approaching
storm rumbles its potential strength. With all your senses ready to be overwhelmed
and caressed by the sight of an impending storm at the end of this time of long
suffering in heat and despair. A feeling that salvation from heat and drought and
seasonal parsimony is at hand, that redemption is a mere few raindrops away.

Standing there like some sacrificial victim with the booming sound of thunder in your
ears as the deluge of hard rain and wind hits you and enfolds you in its shockingly cold
embrace, with a feeling of overwhelming, bubbling joy and the knowledge that
salvation and redemption are here in the drumming of a thousand drops.

Of all these sensory assaults, even over the ecstasy and bliss of the deliverance of rain, I
will always favour and remember most strongly the moment, that one magical breathless
moment, just when all hope seems lost, that moment when you can feel the distant rumble
of thunder instead of hear it, when the winds blow this way instead of there, and with it
bringing the alluring hint of rain and the distant smell of redemption. by Petra Strydom

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