It's like a storm.

Crack! The roll of distant thunder strides across the landscape. An audible threat though as yet, not damaging.

It starts like that. You can feel it coming with the wind changing direction suddenly and a flash of lightning in the distance. It's not actually affecting you yet but it is. Like an impending storm might keep you from washing your car but compel you to make a grocery run you start battening down the hatches.

When the storm rolls in, the world is dark. Everything is dark. The sunrise doesn't reach you so you can't get up. You can't get started. You can't move around. Everything is gray. The rain is heavy. Normally doing things, staying busy, helps you forget the storm rolling in. Not so when it's here. Now everything you do, you do with wet, heavy shoes. Cold, lead blocks for feet. Is your shirt so wet that its weight is dragging you down? Down to the center of the Earth. Something is.

When the storm leaves, as it inevitably does, the morning is filled with it's lingering effects. The fear, like wet pavement, is telltale that it's been heavy. The leaves, shorn from trees are littering the pavement like the scars of the words you've said. Sometimes things are broken. Nevertheless, it is over.