The Storm's Lullaby

    The night is as cold as a night can be. Its 1:36AM by the mobile clock. And of course, as you guessed, its winter. I am lying sleepless on my bed, safe under my quilt, listening to sheets of rain battering the world outside until all we can see is a white haze. It seems almost an uncanny, ominous gesture on the part of Momma Nature. Especially when the prophesied date for the End of the World is just a lil more than a week away.
  
    I was lying awake practising a speech in my mind. I knew sleep was miles away. Suddenly I heard a loud thud in my room like a piece of wood hitting the walls hard. But there was nothing. I imagined it must be another lizard in an aggressive mood. So, i went back to my rehearsing. The sound appeared again. This time, it turned into a helpless rattling on my window panes. I felt the room growing suddenly cold. The sky was rumbling in rage. Why, two shutters of the window were open to the right of my bed. I got down. Barefooted, I stumbled to the windows and pulled the blinds up. A fresh cool wind bathed my face. There was a scent of spring in it. But the coconut tree in sight was bending like the stocks of a catapult, ready to launch the midnight storm. I tiptoed to my parents room to check the windows. All shut. Then I loitered around a little more. The marble was glowing a dim silver, whether in the lightning or in the moonlight piercing through the clouds, I do not know. I could stay up all night in the balcony, watching the rain grow old and thin, hearing the symphony of the angry clouds, feeling the wrath of the lightning bolts as they pierce the silent, winter landscapes.
But something seems odd. It isnt supposed to rain this time of the year. Storms should be fiction. Nor does it snow in the hilly parts this early any year. The news channels are never so engrossed in the weather....
   
    Is this Mayan world really ending then?