The thunderstorm suddenly

A few days ago I was near Piazza Esedra in Rome when the sky suddenly clouded over and a violent thunderstorm came down.

Lately, it has been a daily occurrence here that it rains for a few minutes and then clears up; nothing new, you might say, there have always been sudden downpours, ever since that famous Easter Friday afternoon in Jerusalem: “the darkness from the Mediterranean (…)” (Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita, book one, chapter sixteen, book two, chapter twenty-five).
What has increased, however, is the frequency, the violence and a certain unpredictability with a tropical flavour.

I took pictures that morning, which constitute an organic series by units of time and place: all in the same place, a few minutes apart.

I tried to render the leaden and vaguely post-apocalyptic atmosphere that characterises these sudden changes in the weather, and the reactions of the people, between those who seek shelter, those who are willing to get wet and those who wait, taking advantage of the bar under the arcades, with that worried and uneasy resignation of those who attribute, perhaps a little superficially, every drop of rain to the dreaded climate change.