Josh sat behind his new Mac computer staring forlornly at the screen. He wasn’t thinking about the $2300 he had recently spent on the laptop. He wasn’t thinking about the report that was pending that he had to write. No, he wasn’t thinking about any of his pressing obligations. He was staring at her picture and thinking about her.

Josh stared at his ex-girlfriend’s face and felt a pang of pain and regret, and it was getting worse with each passing day. And that was mainly thanks to Facebook.

They’d gone their separate ways years ago. When they broke up 10 years ago, he was sure it was over. They’d tried to stay friends. There had been a few random hook ups, sporadic periods of long online chats and text conversations, and rarely some phone calls. Close to two years ago, the communication had dwindled but that hadn’t bothered him much. He was over her, had been over her for years. There were no lingering feelings. He was done with it all. He lived a very active life, especially socially. There was always something happening. He didn’t have time to brood. He’d probably dated at least four women since their break and slept with countless more. She was never on his mind, not until now anyways.

The rain lashed at the earth with an unrelenting viciousness that she’d never seen before. She couldn’t see any stars as she looked mournfully outside her window. The sky was as black as her soul and as harsh as the world she’d lived in for the last decade. She rose slowly from the bed and stood at the window of her bedroom, staring outside. It was pitch black. The storm had disrupted electricity as usual. When she was younger, she thought it was ridiculous that the lights always went off when it rained. The darkness used to irritate her. With time, she realized it was not so bad. She actually enjoyed lying in bed, listening to the rain, curled up beneath her duvet, just thinking. But tonight she had asked the house boy not to turn the generator on. Tonight was not a night for thinking or cozying up in bed. She just couldn’t think, and there was nothing gentle about this rain. Was this part of God’s continuous punishment?