Zero Millimetres

Friday, dark by twenty past six. The forecast has it raining now. The gauge on the roof says nothing yet.

What there is: a drop on the back of a hand, another on a bin lid, loud as a knock, the pavement freckling slowly the way a page takes its first few words.

Thirteen degrees, warmer than the morning, which nobody will remember. The week is over before it is wet.

No one is counting these. They come too few to measure, the ones that tell you it has started and leave the deciding to you: open the umbrella, or walk a little faster, and arrive with your shoulders only spotted, carrying the first of it indoors.