Blogfest of Weather

Here is a link where you can hopefully find the rest of the entries. If not, try this one: there has apparently been some technical stuff going on with the linky thing. Thanks to Nick for hosting.

There was no word count request or requirement, so my entry weighs in at a painless 283 words. It's taken from my novel (in revision) Hopeful Romantic.

(Update: Okay, okay. So, I'm so inspired reading Roland and Tessa's entries (the first I've seen up so far) that I want to add something to mine. Since there's no comments yet, I think that's okay.

I'm adding another 217 words- another weather description from the same book.

I was going to use this for the Wordpainting blogfest, but I'll come up with something else for that. Weather is where this belongs- and it's a later passage from the same manuscript, Hopeful Romantic- and shows a much different scene.

To those of you who loved Druid in the "I Can't Say It!" blogfest, this is actually the set-up for the scene I posted for that. So here you go. Lots of weather- two entries in one.

~bru

---

With dramatically laborious effort the driver felt his way along under the dash for the trunk release.

Benjamin thanked him once more as he heard the compartment pop open. The driver was already revving the engine, another apparent warning to hurry as Benjamin got out and retrieved his well-worn leather suitcase.

He scarcely had time to close the lid before the cab tore away from the curb and screeched out into the crowded city street.

Welcome to the United States, Benjamin thought.

He stood still and silent on the uneven sidewalk, until he started shivering.

His teeth at first clenched against the cold and then rattled sharply together. He internally debated between the two likeliest causes: the winter wind or the wrenching fear he could no longer suppress. He supposed at last that it really didn’t matter, regardless he was unable to stop them from doing it.

It was beginning to snow, and not the light and pretty snow depicted in the films, either. This was the wet and dingy sort of slush that could only happen in real life, and would have to happen on the very worst of all days he'd ever known.

This was not in any way the trip to America he had so many times imagined.

His hand vibrated as his fingers clutched the handle of his suitcase. Though the January sun was mostly obscured, as he looked skyward it still burned his eyes.

He staggered a step backward the moment his brain validated the image he was seeing. His knees weakened and wobbled, threatening desertion.

The towering hospital before him was his perfect depiction of Hell, if Hell were a building and made of bricks and mortar.

***(much later in the book...)

Druid looked as though he was made of spun glass, especially as the fine, diamond point rain gathered in his hair and eyelashes.

The waves were high and churned with a restless, deeply rooted melancholy. Just overtaking the roar of the tide was the beckoning cry of gulls.

They sounded sad and lonely.

They sounded just like Annabeth felt.

He walked over to a jutting rock ledge and slowly lowered himself down upon it.

She stayed where she stood, just a few steps behind.

The clouds above parted as they curtseyed over the ocean, pooling to the horizon with the grace and elegance of a Lady’s ball gown being rustled politely, bowing to the queen.

The sky shone through in one spot of pure, brilliant light as orange as the very sun itself, fading as it showered down upon the water through the spectrum until it reached a shade as pale a pink as the flowers Druid had left on his grandmother’s grave.

The temperature seemed even colder here, a study in impossible contrasts as the sea met the sky. The water rushing up, the clouds raining down precipitation upon their heads that could no longer rightly be called anything other than beautiful, sparkling, rose colored flurries of snow.

~February Grace

(a pink snowstorm on a beach? You bet!)