Rain

It'd been raining for days on end. No breaks, no spots of sunshine, just one big dark cloud looming over all of the LA County and the constant trickling of it on the roads and sidewalks and windows and rooftops. The ground choked with water and couldn't carry anymore so the rain gathered in great stagnant pools on top of the grass. Many streets were flooded thigh-high and even the drains spat back up. In the hills, a few houses slid right down the mud. The hotels were packed with suburban refugees who fled and could only wait and pray that nature would be kind to their property. But the news wasn't good. The screen behind the weatherman always showed the same thing - a big orange spiral swirling about over the whole county, not showing any signs of letting up. Sometimes the colors changed into hopeful shades of yellow and green, but the orange always swept right back in. Most people couldn't make any sense of the weather. Cold fronts, humidity, barometric pressure - none of it really equated into the immediate and apparent effects of all that water. Without any understanding of the science, they left it all up to the great big man in the sky himself. And they felt he wasn't too happy. Perhaps he had in store an act of just paternal fury, and Los Angeles was finally going to be damned straight into the sea. Thereafter, all would be right with the world. Amen.