Rain
Rain... When did it all begin? Tears streaking down cheeks as headlights played across the reflective street, couldn't erase that feeling inside. It was empty. No, it was full, full to the brim with feelings that would not find their sound to become expressions.
There was no sound, only the pit-pat of raindrops and cars driving by. The blinds on the windows were closed but she knew what it looked like outside. It was dark, a little cold, and all the trees were soaked and dripping.
It had begun the day she questioned God…? But when had she really begun to do that? Maybe it had happened the day she found an unexplained wound that would not go away. A wound that would not answer to her pleas or respond to any prodding, but only remained silent and heavy at the bottom of a glass of water she had been drinking since time began.
The glass had always been hers. It was just an empty container, really, with different random memories poured in. Sometimes they poured out, a little at a time. The water left darker spots of moisture on her clothes that disappeared in an hour or so. The essence of the water remained in the fabric of her clothes. It left an odor of sadness and personal despair all but forgotten, maybe ignored, on a sunnier day.
But all these musings still did not answer her question. When had it all begun?
She stared at the blank paper in front of her and twirled the pen in her hand. Maybe this hand- pen-entity would speak for her in dark strokes. Maybe this hand-pen-entity would explain the story that hid in its crevices the reason for soul consuming doubt.
“I love you.” What did these words mean, when moments later the true meaning of the three words was lost in the heat of anger or the flight of fear.
The wind howled a little. Her breath came in short bits between pauses of self-examination. She wanted to find that secret spot again, that spot in her heart that, when touched, sang with magic and shouted joy from the rooftops.
“Hey everyone, look at me…! I know the secret of the universe! And it's all contained in my eye when I look at you and you look back at me, and we stare into the depths and forget who is who!”
But the hand-pen-entity was silent except for the scratching sound it made as it journeyed across the broad, blank expanse of a moment as of yet unfulfilled.
It's always right now, happening slowly, a drop at a time. Eternity in one second occurs when I look at you and see my beginning and my end. What does that mean to you?
Tires squeal as a car accelerates, comes over the hill and drives off. Now there is only the pit-pat of the rain, like a clock but only faster. Time won't stop and wait. Not even long enough for you to figure out what you are.
“I will teach you how to love,” she said to herself. There was a time when love was not a word but an all-encompassing feeling that I would make everything ok.
I will be your umbrella. I will shield you from the rain. No longer will your tears go in vain like more tears in the rain, unseen. No longer will the fabric of your clothes hold sadness in the threads that cover you and keep you from the cold.
But did she have that power? Did she have a way to keep that same old fear out of her glass and out of her eyes?
“You have a hurt heart…” But how? How had that happened, how had love given way to sadness?
~ Work submitted by Rue
