Hail in May

I once wrote a story with a friend of mine in high school. Our English teacher asked us to pair up and write a myth (reminiscent of old Greek mythology) surrounding the origin of a natural phenomenon. My friend and I chose hail. We created our protagonist, a young man aptly named Hail, who had been the half-human son of one of the gods from our pantheon. The young man was stoned to death for some perceived transgression in the city he'd called home, which incurred the vengeful wrath of his celestial father. The god stoned the city with chunks of ice the size of people's heads (for dramatic effect, of course), killing most of the city's unsuspecting inhabitants in a most brutal and bloody (and descriptive) fashion. Thus, hail as we know it today came to be. I remember as we were reading off the story in front of the class, our teacher chuckled and remarked, "Ah, there it is!" when we got to describing the macabre massacre, as if he'd been expecting it from us.

We've had rather cold weather here in Sheffield since I arrived about two weeks ago. If I didn't know any better, I'd say we were in the middle of fall, rather than the middle of spring. It's been getting colder by the day, finally culminating yesterday with hail. Quite a bit of hail, actually. It wasn't the size of people's heads, but it reminded me of that story I wrote with a friend so long ago in high school. I wish I'd kept a copy.