A Hellish Gathering

This pandemic took a lot from people. Most notedly, it took people from people. I was lonely. I’m sure that is the least unrelatable thing that anyone has said this past year. When the restrictions were lifted to allow five, socially distanced, humans to interact whilst in the glory of mother nature and not within any man made structure, I was absolutely thrilled. I was overjoyed, ecstatic, blissful. I would see my friends again. We were going to have a picnic on the weekend. It would be grand.
    And then it rained. 
    And it rained the next weekend after that.
    And then it was scheduled to rain the third weekend but by that point we were so fed up that we decided to say “screw it, just wear layers”.
    The gathering was to be held in the backyard of the only friend with a backyard. It was pouring as I travelled to her house. It was pouring as we waited for the other three to arrive. It was pouring whilst three out of the five of us wandered from the house in search of lunch. Needless to say, we were quite damp. And miserable. So much so, one of us nearly bailed.
And then the rain stopped and the sun peeked out. 
We sat again in the backyard wary despite the drying day. Our clothes slowly undampened. Our feet slowly unfroze. 
And then the wind picked up. 
That was when the fourth of five showed up. It took him thrice as long to arrive for he travelled against the gails via bicycle. Together we huddled separately. Our heads bowed in defeat and as a feeble attempt to keep our noses from being blown off our faces and carried away. 
It was a dance between violent gusts of wind and calm, weak sun bringing warmth. One would lead, then the other. A tango made up of the natural world that would only really be enjoyable to watch from the inside of a warm, glorified rectangular prism with a window. Alas, none of us could enter said prism. It was in this battling weather that the fifth of us finally joined. She brought with her a feast. This is where we broke our protocol slightly. This is also why I believe we were punished shortly after. We were sat in a circle, around a table like knights of old but if they were without a castle and protective armour. Our distance was not six feet between each shivering human as we had to share a table. Nor did we have masks on, as we had to eat the food atop the table. It was all well and good then. We talked, we laughed, we reminisced about days past.
And then small drops of water slowly fell from the sky. The dread set in, but hope for it to pass was not lost.
And then the drops got bigger and more frequent. The hope was now lost and we braced for the downpour.
The downpour happened. Huddled we were, still indulging in our sopping wet banquet. Refusing to cry and give up and go home because dammit it had been half a year since last we were all together.
And then it hailed.
We didn’t believe it at first. I thought I saw a small ball of ice land on the table but mayhaps it was something else. Until thousands more descended upon our heads as though Karma and Satan formed an allegiance to show us the error of our ways. Nay, not just that, for we were punished before we set foot in the same yard. It was as if life itself was irked that we went forth with our plans despite the warnings of rotten weather. And so, justice had to be dealt. It was unfathomable to find any other reason this deluge of ice, bible-worthy rain, and fierce winds abused us so. I couldn't make peace with the planet mocking us any other way. It was almost like the lyrics from the song In the End, we tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it didn’t even matter. Unlike those lyrics, it did matter in the end, because even though our feet were numb, our clothes were soaked, we would all probably die shortly after from hypothermia, we saw one another for the first time in months. We braved every kind of weather that day just to see each other’s faces, hear each other’s voices, feel each other’s presence, not through a screen but in person. 
It felt like the world was ending that day but we didn’t give up nonetheless.
It felt like the world was ending for a year already and we were alone. 
What was one more day when we could be together?