There's a little town next to a river, up north and to the east.

When it rains in this town, there are a good number of things that happen. Of course most people in town can smell it coming, if they take the time. They usually do take the time, the people in this small town.

There's a mountain here, too, probably shaped a bit by the river. When it rains, the mist always comes with it, not a dense fog, but a vapor that becomes a part of the air, and slowly grays out the distant places one would normally be able to see. When it rains like today, the mountain is a ghost, a faded silhouette in the air-water. Still it blocks from view whatever secrets it is chosen to hide.

So too does the nearby city become a fading dream or a visiting spirit, where the lights are diluted but visible, the buildings a stationary blur. The rain in this little town is louder, I'm sure, than in the city; the rain hits the leaves on the way down, and it creates the sound of rustling, like something is moving everywhere at once in this town, and as long as you're there, you're surrounded. Even inside the houses the rain sounds come from every direction. The windows are always open and the sound and the air-water comes in. Even along the roof of any given house one can hear the raindrops, and it sounds, quite convincingly, as if the roof is leaking in many places at once, slowly, when there is no water from the roof to be seen or felt. The smell of rain goes through everything, though, and so the inside rain cannot be detected by that means either. Sometimes a raindrop or two will come in through an open window and a citizen will feel the kiss of the water. But the rain isn't damaging; it's always a light, misty rain like today. This town never has a thunderstorm or a hurricane.

The people's lights dim themselves, and they go all at once to look out their windows.

Next to the phantom city is the interstate that winds around the mountain. Two white lights, perhaps at the entrance to this interstate, are situated closely together in a manner as such that they look rather like eyes, eyes of a demon or specter which always seem to be watching you intently when you look at them – from afar, but still too close for comfort.

The rest of this interstate is lined, mostly, with large orange street lamps, which, presumably due to an optical illusion, seem to be single specks of light, entities hovering a hundred feet or so above the road. The exception is a single, higher spot of light, which is clearly further away than the rest, and it too seems orange, although it is hard to tell due to the distance. It seems like the distant leader of an invading army, hovering back, taking command, just close enough to be illuminated not only by its own light, but by the orange, fiery, perhaps hellish, and certainly beautiful orange glow of the lights on the interstate and in the city, those lights which make up its army. But not illuminated enough, mind you, that, if it is a lamp post, its structure is visible. It is simply the leader of the lights floating amongst the air-water.

It rains like this in the little town every evening, in a manner so that the birds are still singing when it starts, the city and interstate almost unable to be seen because the lights are not yet on. Halfway through, as the lights come on, the crickets come out and chirp their songs. The rain slows enough for one to focus on the song of the crickets, informing everyone of the time. You may hear a siren, or an airplane engine's roar, but the source cannot be seen, and it is unsure which side it belongs to. Then the rain picks back up, the cricket song begins to fade, and as the sky darkens further and the lights come to seem larger, brighter – or perhaps closer, the true sounds and sights of the night emerge.