Six o'clock came right on schedule this morning.  My alarm clock went off, its sound intertwining with my dreams, and when I finally managed to untangle one from the other, I realized grudgingly that it was just another Monday.  Today is, in fact, the third Monday so far this week.  That's how it works in college.  Every day is a Monday, until Friday kicks in.

This Monday, however, greeted the Treasure Valley with a storm.  The clouds that had been looming above the city yesterday, growing heavier and heavier with their own depression, finally broke open, tears falling angrily on my freshly washed car.  That was okay, though, because I loved the way my car glowed in the wet.  And from inside my glowing, tear-stained car, I could enjoy the raindrops rhythmically splattering against the moon roof, changing glass to a silvery pool of water.  I could witness the game of tag that Lightening and Thunder were playing high above.  I could see the endless expanse of gray, and could round corners to discover and rediscover the rising sun, red and blotched, as though it was slowly bleeding through the dense fabrics of the sky.  I rolled down the window, stretching out my arm and catching a puddle in my palm, and wondered whether or not I was at the end of a rainbow.  Just as the rain came to its ending cadence, I reached campus.  It was drenched in quiet.  It seemed as though the world slept in, and I had somehow missed the memo.  Upon entering the classroom, my worries were all but confirmed.  I had never been the first person there, and so I switched on the light, which seemed brighter than normal, leaving the outside darker than normal, sat down, and started writing.  It was possible that…no, it was more likely than possible, that my classmates were off on their daily quest for caffeine, a venture I challenged myself not to take.  Not this morning.  Not this third Monday of the week.  They probably hadn't taken that challenge, and, more probably, had taken the gloomy weather as an invitation to visit coffee shops and vending machines with even more enthusiasm than on other, sunnier Mondays. 

And then there they were, filtering in slowly, sleepy like me and everyone else, each with something different clutched tightly in their hands.  Energy drinks, cans of coca-cola, bottles of fuze, fancy cardboard cups of triple-shot no fat extra hot caramel macchiatos – hold the cream.  Yes, all of them, with their choices of sunshine in liquid form.

My sunshine was outside, beginning to appear in pockets, sparkling through the leaves of the tree just out the window.  I watched the people passing by, my last resort to staying awake.  First, glassy premonitions reflecting in the windows of the building across the way.  Then, the causes of the reflections, some strolling, listening to iPods, others whistling by on bicycles, still others sipping their coffee clumsily as they quickly walked, as though their lives lay on the face of a clock.  Then, the pockets of sunshine faded away, leaving my simple entertainment to walk again through the rain.  No – not rain.  Sprinklers.