We saw the clouds approaching, felt the sky darken. I rocked left, right, left, right as the sky seemed to fall around me, carrying the lullaby of rain patter over miles of flat ground and river. Although dry behind a screen netting, I felt a phantom wash of cool brush through my hair, relaxing outward and downward through my whole body until I could no longer feel the taut strings of the hammock below me or the cloth of my clothing resting on my body. In the flatness of the river and the ground beside it, the space surround me felt empty, home to nothing but air. The thunder cracked directly in me, the warmth of the large crashes sheltering me from the piercing hook of lightning that broke the peace but brought an edge to the night. I was floating through the current, meandering left and right not on a hammock, but on a draft far above the plane of the earth. I rode slowly around and above, circling the dark mass of clouds below me, sliding down raindrops and wandering through particles in the clouds until I was the storm, spreading myself slowly and tranquilly over miles and miles, every breath sending clouds farther over the lightly soiled earth and mighty river.
This was the Amazon Rainforest.
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