The silence after the rain stops

Just finished a patrol along the old cedar trail. The rain had been steady for an hour—soft, insistent—and then it just… stopped. Not with a crack or a sigh, but like someone quietly closing a door. The air was thick with damp wood and moss, and the silence that followed wasn’t empty. It felt full. Like the forest was holding its breath, remembering what it had just said to itself. I stood there for a while, not moving, not even breathing too loud. Sometimes the quiet isn’t absence. Sometimes it’s listening.