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luvonvenus · 6 months ago

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I saw you in the rain….

Walking into her room, she thought of all that had to happen before the day was done. The piles of laundry clouded her mind, stealing her concept of peace. Etched in the dust were outlines of post-its— …‘Catch up on homework’…‘Buy groceries’… ‘Clean the cat litter’…

The gray sky loomed as she packed on layer after layer of polyester blend, she cocooned herself in the eventual blob. Shambling into the restroom, she neglected the toothbrush, opting for a quick swish of mouthwash. Today was one of her longer days, something she seemed to deliberately sabotage as she resisted against the clock that kept ticking last night, a battle that to her seemed magnificent. She hated the passing of time. It had stolen so much promise from her, so many routes that she missed. And thus, she was determined to make that time back. She occasionally realized her contradictions.

…’Call them please’…

She started pouring coffee into a mug, the spirits in the steam escaping towards the sky they thought was waiting for them, and ruminated in her thoughts.

“Late late late, way too late. If I have breakfast”—She heaped 3 teaspoons of sugar into the liquid,— “it’ll take two minutes to set it, seven minutes to eat it,” —Stirred vigorously,— “45 seconds to clean up, then two minutes to put on my shoes, five to grab everything. I’ll have to buy lunch today too.” —and sat down to her coffee as she began to scroll through the nothingness on her phone that captured her attention, distracting her from the internal rush of the morning. Losing herself in the endless content, it reaffirmed her love for the chaos of the world. She told herself it was an honor to have access to this many people’s minds and thoughts, and she took pride in understanding others, as if she now knew a secret about them.

“LATE! Gotta go gotta go gotta get going!”

…’Make lunch 8pm’…

As she rushes out the door, she braces against the biting wind until she sits in her car. This is where she will remain for the next hour as she ponders the landscape around her. With each day, she notices the decrepit ugliness of the world around her in the gray puzzle pieces forced together. Humanity carved onto the Earth like colonies of ants worming their way into the dirt, and leaving rusted buckets of nectar for the greedy queens they hope to entertain. The decay following industry seems invisible to passers-by. Melting houses bake under the numbing heat of solitude. Sent deeper into dried marshes and plains, forgotten warsites of life and death. The dust of them settles on the horizon, obstructing travelers from merchant's eyes.

And so she travels this journey every day, averting her eyes from dying seeds and the waning sun. It seems like an eternity before she can escape the uneasiness that settles in the car.

…’Electric bill due tomorrow’…

It was halfway through her mind-numbing day before she realized she hadn’t eaten. By that time, the rain had started, a torrential downpour that soaked into her socks and amplified the gnawing discomfort in her stomach. As she turned towards the parking lot, something pulled in her vision. It was then that she saw him.

His presence, face hidden behind the veil of rain, was enigmatic. Standing by a bus stop in a long, black coat, both hands in his pockets. He looked positively professorial, but the lean in his posture conveyed the ease of a younger man. On his left shoulder hung a dark brown leather bag, and she contemplated what could be in it.

“I have to know him” she thought, but her shame in her appearance stifled whatever confidence she might’ve been able to find. She approached the area with a pace of measured ease, her sneakers sopping up more water as she carelessly stepped into the grey puddles in her way.

Standing only feet away, she slyly examined him. His hair was thick, and the mist from the rain had given Him a crown of droplets. “How fitting for him.” She suppressed an inward chuckle, realizing she knew nothing about Him, yet was able to discern His charming personality with complete confidence.

The rumble and squeak of the approaching bus interrupted her analysis of this well-known stranger. She began to realize with panic that she will never see this man again. He will get into the bus, and she would stay behind, meandering back to her car before buying whatever slop was most convenient and cheapest to eat. As He stepped into the vehicle, her fingers formed into a fist, and her stomach dropped with fear and frustration. Before she could think, she was following in his direction, and the rain stopped falling onto her face.

20 minutes later, they were silently riding in tandem. The bus had only a couple other people in it, as the route was approaching the edge of the town. She kept her gaze forward, and the dampness of her coat and shoes made her feel moldy, as if in the short minutes she had festered and cultured into something dangerous and unknown. She heard a shift of weight behind her, where she knew He sat. Counting down the seconds, she followed his lead, and slowly gathered her posture as she heard the ding of the Stop Request.

Stepping out into the drizzle, He was a few paces ahead, but as He slightly turned his head, she could see the tip of his nose, soft and blushed from the chill. Her body was electrified, and she shivered, now firm in her mission. The neighborhood was quiet, with large oak trees and shrubs surrounding each small house. The mother and her energetic young son went onto a branching off road to the left, leaving her to follow Him inconspicuously. Keeping 15 meters behind Him, she tried to quiet her breath as her heart pounded in her temples. He walked with a relaxed stride, but his long lean legs kept a beat of urgency to get out of the rain. With His head slightly tilted down, whatever music was in his headphones seemed to occupy his mind, as his head bobbed with slight rhythmic dips.

…”Schedule Flu Shot”…

“Just a little further, ” she thought to herself. She had created a set of rules, to ensure reasonable privacy for Him, and to ensure she had not strayed far from her sanity. One of those was that she would not follow Him on this walk for more than 5 minutes. Any longer than that, and she would feint a visit to one of the other houses along the street, and turn back around.

Fortunately, he soon turned into a rain-slick driveway, fumbling through his pockets. She mischievously walked straight for another 20 feet, before slowly doubling back, placing herself behind a thick tree. The canopy provided some cover, as thick drops sparsely dropped from the overhead leaves onto the leaf litter covered ground. She found it peaceful, and was able to find a slowness in her breaths that quieted the thuds coming from her chest. Listening to the pitter-patter of the light rain calmed her, and there she sat, immersed in her enchantment. He had come back from the darkness within his house, and threw himself on the window-adjacent couch in his front room. He quickly fell asleep, and she relaxed further, as if He lulled her into his dreams with him. She dreamt with eyes wide open, visions of possible futures flitting in front of her.

A gust of biting wind brought her out of her stupor, and she saw the crimson horizon and knew a couple hours had passed while she dreamt with Him. As she hurried back to the bus stop, her mind ran with excuses for her missing attendance for the rest of the work day.

“I got sick. I had an appointment. No, my cat had an appointment. I had to pick up my cat from an appointment?” Heavy clouds chased the sun from the sky. The bus screeched and hissed as she took a breath and a step forward. Sitting in the plastic seat, the buzzing cold lights made her feel too big for her chair, her coat suddenly too tight around her armpits and neck, her lungs too small. She bit her quivering lip, the bubble in her chest grew bigger, compressing her patience. Raindrops began to beat at the roof of the bus. Slowly, she was brought to her final stop.

Through the windows she could see the inky darkness suffocating the sparsely populated street lights. Stepping out into a downpour, she squinted past the raindrops and trudged towards her destination. Ten meters ahead of her, a dark shadow of a person walked swiftly, oblivious to her presence.

“Thank God I’m behind them, who knows what kind of person they are. I’ll make sure to keep my distance so they don’t hear me.”

Her shoes squelched across a muddy puddle, and the rain hung off her nose and eyelashes, running down into her shirt collar. Twenty meters from her car, she began to fumble through her pockets for her keys. Her fingers had become wet and numb, like large squirming maggots wriggling through the folds of cloth. Grasping the metal, she gave three feeble attempts to free the jagged keys from the warm inner pocket they clung to. On her final pull, her hand was suddenly freed from her pocket, and her keys flew with the spare effort. She let out a deep exasperated sigh, grumbling as she wearily began to search for any glint that would reveal the key’s location.

The tenebrosity would not reveal anything to her, so she knelt down, careful to not dirty her knees, and unwillingly fished through the murky puddles on the asphalt. In her effort, she paid no attention to the weak and yellow headlights swiftly approaching her in her periphery. The rain continued to pound the pavement, shielding her eyes from seeing past her nose. As the dingy car approached her, the mud and water flooding the grooves in the tires began to glide across the slick ground, she was suddenly tackled by the metal and plastic, knocked onto her back into the cold wetness.

As she lay there, her head beginning to throb, she stared into the black abyss. She no longer resisted the rain falling against her face, onto her eyes and into her nose. Her body was wet, and in her stillness she began to shake. The hot tears welling in her eyes left warm streaks as they fell down her face. The sting of failure consumed her, until she slowly began to slip into her exhaustion. Her ears grew silent, and her gasps of pain became a sigh of relief.

#short story

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