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Have you ever seen the rain in autumn as twilight falls? The crisp autumn air cushions the downpour with a soft fog that looms like dry ice as it is pounded with the chilly precipitation. The scene becomes even more picturesque as a lake is added, with weeping willows leaning toward their rain-speckled reflection.

Among the rain floats a certain aura that is shaded bluish gray. The graying sky slowly turns violet, and then deep velvety blue. The glittering stars are hidden tonight, by gray clouds that tint the blanket of sky an all-night gray. Gray like a snowy morning, or gray like an old movie. A gray that will stretch over the world until dawn, giving you the false impression that it is only a cold, overcast day. But it is not day, it is night. And it is raining.

The rain comes in piercing torrents, cold, but strangely warm. Familiar warm, like that of a mother's touch. But still cold. The distant, biting cold that shatters your skin and trickles down your shadowed cheeks. The cold is one that whispers of a coming winter, yet reminds you that it is still autumn. The ever contradictory battle between cold and warm, warm and cold.

The accompanying wind sweeps through your hair, blowing it about your face. The warm, friendly wind, that can turn cold at any moment, but is warm for the time being. A wind that lifts up your sleeves and circles around your wrists. The same wind that causes hurricanes, but also strands sailors at sea. The wind tonight comes hand-in-hand with the ghostly deluge.

As you step forward, you can see yourself edging into your reflection at the water's edge. Upon the lake, the pitter-patter of the raindrops reminds you that you are wet and frozen, but for the moment the water mesmerizes you. Much like Narcissus was. But you look, not out of vanity, but out of sheer amazement at nature's beauty. You stare out over the lake, seeing the smooth glassiness of what seems a phantasm, disturbed only by the falling shower. As the cloud-bursts flood over you, you are once again reminded of your state of discomfort. And as you walk away, you sneak one last glimpse at the lake. The fog is lifting and the force of the rain is ebbing. As the autumn rain slowly dissipates, people forget the beauty. But you will remember, won't you?