Kirk sat on his porch waiting for the rain to come, not just waiting; willing, needing, desperately wanting. The sun slipped down behind the mountains far in the west, like a climber whose strength was failing him one inch at a time.

It had been a year since he had moved into a shack in the Nevada badlands and as long as he had seen rain. If he had been a superstitious person, he would have thought that Someone was deliberately withholding it.

He lived out in the middle of nowhere without neighbors beyond an ill-tempered bobcat, a couple of love-sick rattlers and an overfriendly scorpion. Kirk didn’t mind the lack of people nor the dangerous critters- but the rain deprivation was driving him crazy. He hungered for the rain’s cleansing embrace. Sure, water was a sink away but that didn’t fill his need. He hadn’t even been aware he had such a need until he had moved out there. Sometimes he wished he could go home but that was impossible now.

Storm clouds spat lightning in the distance and still he waited.