Written On Those Sleepless Nights

Pitter Patter

It was dark outside, the hands on the old clock tower moved lazily from one number to the other, dragging itself like a sleepy drunkard about to fall over on the concrete pavements of London. It was nearing midnight, that’s for sure. But still, the night dragged on.

Even in the darkened hours of the night, the rain carelessly poured down over the sleeping city. Droplets of water bounced off the roofs and pavement, showering the deserted streets and avenues, composing a beautiful harmony as the city echoed back each tiny splash of a raindrop on the wall or the delicate clink-clanks as they rushed down houses’ water pipes and balconies. The yellow street-lights, blurred by the thick curtains of rain, casted an eerie warmth over the vacant arteries of London. One may compare the colour of their dull halos to that of sweet molten butter that lost its grace after a fort-night or the ghostly light of a phantom passing lamentably over its grave.  Tenderly, the wind added its humble contribution to the melancholy sight by swaying the liquid curtains side to side to its own little rhythm and fashioned up small waves that lapped gently at the cement shore.

A passerby in a hurry would have thought the streets to be abandoned. However, if one just looked a little closer, pass the mystical performance of nature, he would have caught sight of a tiny figure jumping merrily under the assault of God’s molten arrows.

A small red umbrella in hand that matched perfectly with her bright rubber boots, the little girl jumped and hopped into puddles big and small on the pavements. Her small body would create a splash every time it landed into the newly made pool of water, and every time it would cause a childish smile to grace her innocent angelic face and a giggle would bubble its way up her little throat. She wore a yellow raincoat that was a wee bit too big for her baby form and so reached all the way to the beginning of her boots and the sleeves would have covered her tiny hands if they weren’t rolled up to her wrists. Adorned on her head was a hat with the same colour. Her sole appearance brightened up the entire corner of the dark, graying scene.

“Pitter patter, pitter patter

Down comes the rain today

Clouds are forming in the sky,

Inside we’ll have to stay.”

Lovingly, the wind carried the little girl’s song, along with her voice as clear as a chiming bell, through the curtains of rain, the eerie yellow street-lights, the small waves lapping gently at the cement shore and the vacant streets of London.

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The women stumbled along the sidewalk, the rain was still carelessly pouring down the sleeping city, tiredness and frustration evident on her face. She was no more than twenty-four summers, but already she looked like she should have been thirty-eight.

With a gray handbag slung onto her right shoulder, the woman walked down the slippery pavement in a pair of standard 4.5 inches black heels. Her raven hair, which was tied neatly in a black plastic band in the beginning of the day, now thrown together in a messy pony tail at the back of her head, a few strands would escape the bound and tumbled sloppily down her face now and then. Her professional pair of rectangular black-framed glasses sat on the bridge of her nose which she had to take down every few minutes to wipe the heavy drops of water off it to allow her at least a clearer sight of wear she was going. She wore a formal business suit that consisted of a gray pencil skirt that went just pass her knees, a plain white blouse and a standard black jacket, even though soaking wet by now, not a single fold of her uniform-like clothes was out of place. She was anyone’s expectation of a young female lawyer, a bearable face, formal, neat, professional, and mentally exhausted. Nothing more, nothing less.

As ordinary as the woman may appeared to be, her story was not, and in fact far from it. Fate had not been kind to her, landing her in the slump of society without a face in the world that she knew. Digging the way out of the place that fate condemned one to was hard, digging the way out on a pair of bare, feminine hands was twice as challenging. Through her time of existence, she had confronted many sides and faces of society, most of them hideous and deformed rather than pretty and colourful like a young girl’s fantasy. She didn’t mind, she’d never believe in fairytales anyways. To her, they were illusions, created to bask a human being in their own private pink world just to be smashed down with a hammer and shattered pieces flying everywhere, piercing into one’s flesh and soul, never meant to be healed but scarred for the rest of eternity. She despised fairytales. Life had thrown sticks and stones at her, daggers and razor blades, poison and tornados, still she made it through, because, as she would often say, she had stuck to the righteous and logic roots of life and not strayed into the realm of nonsense fantasies.