Serein

August

Serein (noun)
• A fine rain falling after sunset from a sky in which no clouds are present.
Pronunciation: suh-ran
—www.dictionary.com

~~~~~

August*

Rebecca was sitting beside her open bedroom window, watching the sun sink below the horizon.

As the colour before her changed from orange to pink to a deep blue, a light rain fell from the cloudless sky.

Rebecca had never understood precisely why or how this happened, and perhaps that was why she had always loved it.

Rebecca was starting her final year of high school the next day, and all she had been hearing was what she should do, where she should go, and who she should be. Rebecca longed to be like the rain that laughed at expectations. She didn't know what she wanted, and she craved the freedom to do what everyone said she couldn't, to go wherever she pleased, and to be true to herself.

Rebecca sighed and reached her hand out the window to let the droplets run down her arm.

"Rebecca!" her mother called, "It's nearly midnight, and you have to be up early for school tomorrow!"

Rebecca drew her arm inside and picked up her phone. 11:47P.M. How long had she been lost in thought? Even though Rebecca knew her mother was right, she wasn't tired, and she didn't want to listen. No one told the rain how to behave.

Rebecca placed her phone and glasses on her nightstand and switched off the light. She crawled under the covers.

The window remained open, and the rain continued to fall.

~

Instead of being awoken the next morning by her favourite song, Rebecca woke up to the sound of her mother's voice singing a Lady Gaga song. Lady Gaga was her mother's favourite singer, and her mother had a terrible habit of singing in the shower.

Rebecca groaned, rolled over, and buried her face in her pillows.

Her mother was actually not a bad singer, but her timing was awful. Every morning, Rebecca's mother awoke at five in the morning and showered at precisely 5:14A.M. Some days, Rebecca was able to ignore the singing and get two more hours of sleep. This was not one of those days.

Rather than getting ready for the day right away, Rebecca wandered out to her living room where her shitzu, Sammy, was sleeping.

"Hi Sammy," Rebecca said as she scooped him up in her arms. "Sorry I woke you up. Blame mum. She woke me up."

Sammy squirmed and twisted in her arms, licking at her face. "Eww! Sammy gross!" Rebecca laughed and put the dog on the floor. "Let's go get some food, eh boy?"

Sammy followed excitedly to the kitchen. Rebecca filled up Sammy's food and water dishes. She opened a cupboard and stared at the cereal boxes, but she couldn't bring herself to eat.

"Sammy," she said, looking down at the dog, "I don't know how you manage to eat this early in the morning. It cannot be good for the digestion."

"I didn't know you were awake," said Rebecca's mother, walking in from the hallway. "When did you get up?"

"About the same time that you started singing 'Poker Face,'" Rebecca replied.