Seattle, After the Rain

By Anna Vodicka

To the birds, we must look like ants at a picnic, the way we crawl from our dark caves and run crazed for sidewalks and grassy parks, which hours ago sat empty. According to the news, it’s the wettest winter on record, which is saying a lot for Seattle. In fact, the birds are probably too busy air-drying their wings to notice us—the shirtless man who dances acrobatic circles around the statue of the Black Hole Sun, swinging a sword like a hyper samurai, while the girl in long pigtails and a red t-shirt plays acoustic guitar and sings to the wind and anyone else who will listen, which, today, is everyone, because today we are ants, we are purpose-driven angels haloed by a yellow light, a benevolent god who reigns in the holy clear skies above, and it is the lunch hour, and we are all hungry for the sounds of birds and men dancing and girls in red t-shirts singing for every stranger under the sun.