Perpetual Rain ✓

Reminiscence

You had been on the kitchen floor for a good hour, just watching your parents sit and eat breakfast. It was mostly silent, neither of them seemed to want to hold much of a conversation, but then again, how could they? Normally you would be seated between the two of them in the morning while they bothered you with repeated questions about school or your plans for the week, Mom idly mentioning something that was broken and needing to be fixed, and Dad offering warnings about the political stance of the country that week or advising you on how to manage your money better.

It had been the cycle of your life for the past eighteen years, but now that large piece of the puzzle was missing and could no longer keep the edges together. The life they had known for nearly two decades was now eradicated and they had to start anew. You weren't even sure if they knew how. You were brought into this world exactly nine months after their marriage - shows how much fun their wedding night was - and they had never really known life without you.

Your father was a hard man that showed his love in brash ways and your mom was born to be a mother. Could they recall the love they shared before you existed? Would they be able to rekindle that light and fuel it? You were worried about them, what their future would hold. Honestly, looking back on it you never imagined the impact you had on their lives. Still you were sitting on the kitchen floor, watching their livelihood hang by a thin thread.

Soon enough, Dad had gotten up and gotten dressed. He was getting ready to head to work. Though the way your mother doted on him, helping him get ready, let you know he hadn't been to work in some time. The bills were likely piling up. She fetched his tie and gathered his coat fresh from the dryer. She made him a cup of his abnormally strong coffee to go and gave him a loving pat on the shoulder before he walked out. Though neither one of them had smiled once.

Once father was gone off to work, Mom had ventured into the living room and laid on the couch with a scene that just lacked self-worth. She was lost in what to do now that her life had changed so radically. Half her life had been spent taking care of her child, and now she lacked that purpose. Part of you wished you had siblings now, to give her to something to hold on to.

You sat in the opposite chair for a bit, watching as she switched on a lifetime movie. But she didn't watch it. She mostly just stared into dead space and was using the T.V as background noise to help kill the silence. Soon enough, she had drifted off to sleep, but she looked anything but peaceful in her slumber.

Getting up, you wandered to the front door and grabbed one of your trench coats that was still hanging there, untouched just like your room. You wrapped it around yourself, using it to cover the white cloud pajamas you wore, too numb to bother putting on proper clothes because... who was going to see you anyway? You slipped on a pair of sandals and like that, you were gone.

Reaching your porch, you noticed Manny was still gone. Now you understood a bit better, maybe Father had opted to sell it after your passing, maybe they had it stored at your Uncle's place so that they wouldn't have to see it every day. You didn't know, but you couldn't ask.

Propping up the collar of your coat, you jogged your way down the steps of your childhood home and headed for the sidewalk. This time, you didn't care to shield yourself from the rain. Maybe you were trying to test the theory if ghosts could get sick, or at this point, you just didn't care.

As you headed away from home, your mind began to replay every memory you had created on that little street you had grown up on. You passed the spot where your father had taught you to ride a bike for the first time. You remembered how badly you had fallen and skinned your knee so severely that the blood stain on the asphalt stayed for a whole week, right there beside Ms. Lambert's curb.

The corner where you and your childhood friend Charlotte would sit for a while after school before going home to your parents who would force you to sit down and do your homework before anything else. You remembered that it was there she had told you about her first elementary school crush, and how much she loved the little freckles he had across his cheeks. She had only just met him that school year, only known him for a few days but, at the age of seven, she knew she was in love. They broke up that next summer. 

The large oak tree just four blocks down, where you had your first kiss. Right in the front yard of his parent's house, Joseph. It was a mighty sunny spring day just a few weeks after your fourteenth birthday. Joseph was in your class and you had fallen for him hard, thankfully you weren't alone in those feelings, and it was one of the happiest moments when you learned he only lived a few blocks from you, much to the dismay of both of your parents.

He had moved away from Spring Canyon that winter, but he was still the first love you had. You never saw him after he left, even though you promised to see him again one day just as he had promised you the same. Young love, that's what they always say. Thinking back, you had no legitimate reason to love him other than the way his blonde hair bounced when he ran, the shimmering color of his hazel eyes, or the fact that he gave you his chocolate milk during lunch.

There were so many memories scattered down that beaten old street. Things that shaped you into the person you had become, the person you were now. The person... you used to be.

You stuffed your hands deep into your coat pockets and ripped your gaze away from the street, keeping your eyes fixated on the path laid out in front of you as you forced the memories away. They were just useless images flashing back to your mind, the memories that you had formed in your life that seemed monumentally small compared to how things were now. Now, you were incapable of even forming any more, and dwelling on the past never earned you anything.

Then again, the past was all you had when there was no future to be made. The conundrum just made your head throb to the beating of your heart, pounding in your skull that begged for silence. The only way to stop the beating was to not think about it, not relive the past. So instead, you simply focused on the world around you.

The asphalt under your feet, the wind flowing through your frizzed hair, the sound of cars passing by and tires rolling over the wet roads, the smell of Ms.Lambert's rose bushes that lined her side of the sidewalk... Anything to get you out of your own head.