The man who has nothing

His twisted, contorted face crumpled in agony. He dug his long nails into my shoulder, shaking me, rattling my teeth. My hair swung in front of my face.

He let out a howl of fury. I tried to close my eyes, tried to hide my face away. But I couldn't stop looking. My mouth hung open in an ill-formed 'o' and my eyes, wide open with horror took in his face, twisted, contorted in grief and anger.

"And if it doesn't rain? If it doesn't? What then? Have you thought about that?" he yelled.

I watched him in morbid fascination. My shoulders were numb and I had lost the feeling in my arms where his fingers clawed at my skin.

"I…" I tried to stammer.

His face was dark, as dark as the clouds that gathered and grumbled everyday with the promise of rain. They never delivered. His eyes flashed with the light of a hundred thousand volt lightning that lit up the sky every night, and led to nothing.

He is not human, I remind myself. His voice rumbles threateningly, at the back of his throat, like the grey rain clouds, that thunder as they brush against each other.

"We will lose everything. Everything! You hear me?" he said in a deathly whisper.

I nod my head slowly, in assent.

"I know," I whisper back. I feel  his grip loosen from my arms. I hear them slide limply to his side. His eyes, sunken into his gaunt face, lined and furrowed with age and centuries-old suffering looks up balefully at me.

"My whole life, I have been waiting for this," he mumbled hoarsely. "It has been a long time."

"I am sorry," I say mechanically. Sorry for what? Sorry because this man, who has nothing, needs rain and the Gods will deny him even that?

Its really the small things we need to get right. A little bit of rain. A pair of slippers. A roof over our heads. A signal that tells us where our next meal is going to come from. A light hovering over our doorstep when we return home from work. Someone invading our personal space from time to time to remind us that we are not alone.

And then, sometimes, you meet this man, and others like him, who have nothing.