Torrential, felt too inadequate a description. To her senses, it was as though the Heavens had flooded and had no other recourse but to drench the Earth below.
The Earth and all its inhabitants, she thought, grimly, as she exited the store, three cumbersome bags in her left hand while struggling to open the umbrella in her right.
Not to be outdone, Mother Nature's other child, Wind, perfecting the role of Rain's fellow tormentor, insisted on wrestling aforementioned umbrella out of her grasp.
"I don't think so, buddy," she called out, sternly.
When her ego pointed out there were others within hearing distance, she silenced it with, "Dude, the struggle is real."
Across the street she saw the first bus pulling away from the stop. Seeing a second take its place, she scurried through the crosswalk, adjusting her bags of double sized paper towels, two bags of lettuce and a gallon jug of distilled water. As a fleeting thought, she hoped the three milk chocolate bars of caramel clusters would survive the journey home, uncrushed.
She then joined the queue to board, holding out for as long as she could before closing up her umbrella and resigning herself, reluctantly, to full exposure to the elements. When she wasn't summarily drenched as she had expected to be, she looked up and found herself under the protective canopy of another umbrella.
It belonged to a kind stranger who smiled and made a remark about the rain. And though she laughed in reply, in truth, she was so surprised and grateful for his kind gesture, she didn't fully register the specificity and, therefore, meaning of his words.
She thanked him twice. Once, prior to boarding and paying the fare. And then again as he passed her on the way towards the back of the bus. He smiled again, assuring her it had been no problem at all.
For the remainder of the bus ride, two things played in rotation on her mind: the lovely, unexpected kindness of a stranger and the gentle encouragement to the grocery-bag-bearing left hand to hold on just a little bit more until they got to their stop.