literature

Suburban Rainfall

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Literature Text

The rain fell in showers upon the windowsill.

The perfectly rhythmical sound of countless waterfalls tapped repeatedly on the wooden surface as I watched the moonlight filter through its trickling drops.

The leaves streamed the flow of the transparent liquid like melted bronze, into the mold that was the spreading pond on the floor in front of our townhouse.

I saw a few people splashing the ponds with their feet. They all cringed under their makeshift umbrellas of dyed cellophane, fearing the drops of cold rain as if they were epileptic seizures. They hid underneath their shields and breached through the rain like hoplites of ancient Greece did through the phalanx of their enemies. They repelled the arrows of rain bravely and conquered many lands in their wake.

My observant nature frightened me, I realized I could predict with certainty the events of a rainy evening in our street.

I knew that my neighbor, Mr. Smith, was going to hurriedly run out of his home to cover his black ‘68 Mustang. He ran out through the door, without even a hat on, and begun to unfold a huge grey cover over his most prized possession. I felt for him a deep empathy – for all his success as a lawyer he could never find himself a wife to keep his life stable and saturated with love. Instead, he chose to possess a geometrically increasing amount of wealth.

Across our narrow street, I knew that Ms. Lopez would open the window to let into her home the sound of rainfall. She once told me it soothed her to hear drops of water falling down from the sky, she said that she used to imagine they were the extended fingertips of Brazil’s ocean waves that were sent by her hometown to pat her face and wash out the tears of homesickness from the insides of her eyelids. She said that that was where true nostalgia hides.

My upstairs neighbors’ cat, of course, had to make an appearance. The little bugger would always descend down the gutter and then scuff off to who-knows-where during a rainy day. He’d usually be gone for the entire duration of daylight and then come back with a growling gut in the evening. I even fed him a few times, I couldn’t say no to the heart-tearing sound that he let out.

My other next door neighbor’s husband died. I knew how she loved him and fought alongside him against a bitter enemy that grew inside of him for a year and a half. Their combined effort wasn’t enough and his body succumbed to the suffering, but, oh, how she adored the man! The rainfall brought solstice to her broken heart and beaten soul. I could hear her deep equal breaths through my ajar window.

A car pulled over across the street and to the right. That was Mr. Hathaway trying to successfully park his vehicle in a drunken state. He staggered out through the car door and immediately tumbled to the ground, disoriented. Rain quickly drenched his shirt and he crawled into his home clumsily, throwing up once on his lawn along the way.

Our gardener was smiling for some reason. He trimmed the roses in front of the townhouse and I soon discovered the reason for his ear-to-ear grin, when his wife picked him up with their car. He got into the driver’s seat and drove them both away somewhere after they shared a kiss. I can’t say for sure, but I think her stomach looked a bit rounder than last I had remembered it.

The big game was on and someone was watching it with the volume turned all the way to the top. The whole neighborhood was informed by the overly-excited commentary that the Giants were well ahead and the man responsible for the loudness of the broadcast told his buddy that he thought that they were going to go all the way this year. The sound of a beer being opened followed his prediction and then a loud belch.

The air smelled of evaporating soil and footprints from the walkway. Blades of grass swerved in the gentle wind as they were fitted with raindrops like strings with pearls.

The wind blew the seeds off from a dancing dandelion like a child would the flames from birthday candles and they filled the air like tiny helicopters.

Rain is what makes time slow down to the point where motion exists no more and only thought is allowed to function. Every raindrop is an optical instrument that disperses a single ray of light into an infinite loop of color; rain cleanses the mind of material chains and sets it free into a world of its own.

I felt my coffee had gotten cold – the consequence of sitting by the window for too long and watching the drops race each other to the bottom of the glass.

I sat up straight, spared the rain a few more glances and went about my day thinking about how, hoping that someday, the rain will measure just the right amount of time to slow down enough for all the world’s neighbors to wash their slates clean of sadness, lacking, alcohol and loss.
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"Rain is what makes time slow down to the point where motion exists no more and only thought is allowed to function."
Ovo si prelepo rekao :)