Short Stories

Rain is Misery, and I am Rain

There is something serene about today that lets me know rain is coming. The wet heat that hangs in the air and the slow-moving grey clouds floating towards the park, where a bushel of screaming children are playing with smiles wide on their faces. Their parents talk animatedly to each other. I watch from the window, enjoying the sight of the slowly welling tears and paling of the sky. The sun was preparing for the ultimate grey overlap. It was to be covered until the sky was done throwing its tantrum, like a spoiled child who hadn't gotten the toy they wanted for Christmas.

Slowly, the children are pulled from their fun. Avid protest leaves their mouth as they want to stay and roll in the dirt for 'just five more minutes.' The haze slowly falls over the area, and the park becomes blank. I stand from my spot in front of the window and grab my headphones. I walk out the door and continue until I reach the grassy plane in the middle of the park.

Soft pattering against the leaves of the trees starts it all. Tears leave the darkened sky to touch the roofs, the ground, and my bruised upturned face. The sky casts its misery over everything as if expressing the pain of being. A smile lifts my cheeks as if to accept the rain into my warm embrace. My arms slowly come up my sides and out as if I am hugging the air. My ribs scream in protest as I breathe in the smell of the rain and emptiness. The white buds in my ears allow for an accompaniment to the sky's misery. The sounds of violins, pianos, tubas, trombones, violas, cellos, trumpets...a full orchestra, surrounds me like a bubble, and only the sky's tears can pierce it.

My arms slowly and gracefully come back down while my body contracts inwards on itself. The painful movements are a welcomed feeling. The sky's sobs become fiercer, and the music picks up tempo and vehemence like I am the sole conductor of misery. My body swaying and moving through the air as if to become one with it and drift off into nothingness. Slowly, as the tears from the sky ran down my face and the music enveloped my being, I became one with the misery and despair. I became all the misery and despair. I became the only misery and despair. My movements become sharp, like the thunder crashing through the air. Light blazing from the sky as if screaming, "HEAR ME!". As if to say, "I'M STILL HERE." As if to say, "DON'T FORGET ME!". The orchestra's crescendo is all left in the downpour of the earth's misery, and I continue to manifest this abstract concept of struggle. I can feel the buildup in my soul from the deep recesses of the pit inside me. The area normally reserved to hold the pain in. To hold in the loss. To hold in the anguish. To hold in the scars. To hold in...To hold it all in. It grows just as fast as the light flashes in the sky. Building and building like a skyscraper until there is no room left to breathe.

My movements stop. I open my mouth and scream the kind of scream that brings you to your knees. The kind of scream that makes those around you share in your misery. The kind of scream that sends shockwaves through your soul. The kind of scream that leaves you empty when it's over.

It's those kinds of screams that leave you blank. Like the slowly pattering rain on the ground. Like the light ending of a dramatic orchestra. Like the mute sky hoping for a speck of sun to let the flowers bloom.

I can tell that the tears are no longer just from the sky. It is obvious from the pain in my eyes that they are red and swollen. My pain is no longer just stuck in the hole I shoved it in. It is out. It is exposed. I am exposed. I am vulnerable. I pick back up my bricks. I put back up my wall. I stand. The cold wind not even registering on my shaking wet frame. I walk blankly back into the house. My eyes as vacant as the hole now in my pit of my pain.

My mother asks snidely if the rain was nice today.

I say yes...