The Bear and Barnacle

The winds come first, howling and gusting and making the residents of Margate feel almost as though they are standing in water where powerful currents crash with cool, silent might into one another. Umbrellas turn inside out; scarves writhe like snakes hell-bent for liberty around their owners' necks. Leaves are driven sliding across the ground with rasps like the tines of a rake on pavement, and the waves of the sea hurl their humped, enraged shoulders at the sandy shore and dash themselves to pieces against it with angry splashes of spray.

Then come the rains, the sort of endless rain, too steady to be musical, that disguises anything, running footsteps or crunching gravel or the drums of headhunters coming to slay the good people in their beds. Windows turn into portals to a watery world. If anyone dares to venture out in such weather, the wind drives the rain into faces and down collars and instantly through cloth, until it's like a sharp barrage of latex-free water balloons.

Water pours from eaves as though from a pitcher. Lawns are churned to mud; the beach is like quicksand. Gutters are rivers. Roofs develop vengeful leaks and doormats dissolve. Rain boots fill and tip over and are lost in the mud, to be dug up perhaps when, in some distant future, the world dries out.

A tropical cyclone, maybe? The satellite views seem to show one. But this is Kent. This is England. In this cold the word "tropical" seems obscene. And surely by now it would have passed even if by some freak chance such a storm blew in like a very lost bird.

But it does not pass, this abnormally foul weather. It's been rainy and blowsy, so that stepping outside is like a horizontal cold shower, for a week now without the slightest slackening of wind and wet. And still it storms.

Tag for the month is "storm". Post to the community with your character's response to the freak weather.

A few clarifications, since there have been some questions: Topics run from the first of the month to the first of the month. You can reply at any time within that window. Events, however, run from the fifteenth to the fifteenth. For example, the "monsters" topic opened on November the first, and will close on November the thirtieth. The "storm" event opens on November the fifteenth (this is the part where I ignore how much I fail at the calendar) and will not be closed until the fifteenth of December.

Also, please do remember to alter your tags to show who's threading in your posts!