cyclone

A cyclone hit the capital during one of our performances once. The opera house was in the new city, on one of the cliffs overlooking the old city, that impossible district that was reclaimed from the ocean at the city's foundation. The insistent howling of the wind had the audience on edge as I sang, and when someone ran in and shouted that the city was flooding, the panic drove most of them to run outside and see. We crept our way up to the rooftops to watch.

The rain was heavy enough that I was soaked immediately, despite putting on a cloak before going outside, and the wind made just staying upright difficult. But with some effort, and bracing ourselves on the railings, we could see the old city, if only just: the waves crashing over the floodbanks, the water accumulating in the marble streets. People were fleeing, of course, and later the theatre's director provided shelter for those of our patrons who were displaced by the storm--a whole building filled with aristocrats, cowering against the storm.

I went back to the roof rather than deal with them. It was autumn, right at the time when the trees were filled with golden leaves, and in this terrible gale the air was full of leaves, dancing and swirling to the tuneless rhythm of nature's wrath. It was such a beautiful reminder that we exist at the sufferance of the storm and the sea, that even the wealthiest and most powerful of us must sometimes submit to the wind and rain.

Eventually someone found me and dragged me inside and forced me to drink some hot cider and change into something that wasn't wet, and eventually the storm subsided and the city recovered, more or less. And the following morning, the streets around the theatre were covered in a carpet of golden leaves.