13 Different Ways: Rain
1. Lunch was nice. We sat outside of that little cafe in the park that spring afternoon. We ate our food and made small talk. We drank the wine and our talk drifted towards weightier topics. The wine ran out and we sat in silence. Not that awkward silence that oppresses people who don’t know how to communicate with each other, but that amazingly peaceful silence that embraces two people who don’t need words to enjoy one another’s presence. The waitress took our dishes away and brought the bill. Then the rain started. Neither of us moved though. The rain fell and we sat there with our heads tilted toward the sky, allowing the cool water to fall on us. You took my hand. This is my most perfect memory.
2. The two of them lay in bed and held each other, their breathing still heavy. As the rain outside pelted the bedroom window, the woman traced her finger slowly over the man’s chest. He moaned softly and she pressed herself even closer to his side. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled.
3. The android hurried back and forth across the lawn. Its owner had told it to mow and rake the yard. Failure to fulfill that order would cause a break down in its logic unit. But now, the sky showed signs of rain. It tried desparately to contact its owner and get instructions to allow it to go inside without completing the lawn, but the owner was not responding to queries. Without those instructions, it had no choice but to continue working. Model EFMM-2480 Series J domecile units were very affordable and durable units, but the reason they could be sold at such a low price was the lack of quality joint seals. If it was caught in the storm that would be its end.
4. A quality single malt is not destroyed by the addition of a little rain water. So, once the rain starts, do not go running for the nearest awning. Instead, watch the chaos around you and calmly enjoy the peaty taste of good whiskey.
5. Farmer Cobb, his coveralls dusty and falling apart from wear, looked over the dry brown field that he owned. Months of no rain had taken its toll. No vegetation poked out of the rows of soil. No stalks of corn greeted him each morning. The sun mocked him as he adjusted the brim of his hat to shield his eyes. He thought about the shotgun hanging over the mantle in his living room. The man from the bank would be by any day to check on the farm and ask about the three loan payments Cobb owed him. Cobb hoped the man had a strong stomach.
6. On the lawn of that house on the corner sits a paper mache’ bunny. It was probably part of some kid’s school art project and it was set there to show the world what the child had created. I can picture his or her parents setting it in the middle of the front lawn, smile beaming, and then rustling little Johnnie or Suzie’s hair. Now it’s sitting there. The rain started an hour ago and the bunny has been slowly melting since. Its face is a ruddy mess of newspaper and wet plaster. The tissue paper fur is tearing apart and piling around it. Soon, the family will return from dinner and see the blob that was once their child’s precious creation lying there in a puddle. The child will cry and the parents will comfort it. I wait. I want to see it all. The bunny’s body splits from oversaturation.
7. High atop a building overlooking the city, the hero stands watching the rain fall on a city that no longer needs him and a woman who no longer wants him.
8. “Honey, did you remember your mesh poncho?”
“Aw Mom…It’s barely raining.”
“Fine, but if your radiation badge turns the slightest bit red, you get back into this house.”
“Yes m’am.”
9. Do you remember the night that my mom died? Do you remember how it rained as we made love? Do you remember how you convinced me not to stop and answer my phone? I said that any call at three a.m. was an emergency. You replied that whatever it was could wait. Then, you were in the shower and I was still lying in bed. I could smell the mix of your scent on the sheets and the odor of your body wash coming from the bathroom. I picked up my cellphone, checked my voicemail, and it was my sister. She was crying and saying that mom had been in an accident and arrived dead to the hospital 3 hours ago.
Do you remember that night? That last night we had sex?
10. Nelson lay chained to the pipe, investigating the hole he’d been left in. When he grimaced, his broken jaw screamed in pain. His memory was still foggy, but he remembered being at the club. He remember the amazingly beautiful woman dancing with him. He remembered her husband coming at him in the parking lot later. After that, everything was a blur. As it started to rain, and the water pooled in the bottom of the hole. He started screaming for help. By the time the water was up to his shins, he’d lost his voice.
11. It’s raining. It’s pouring. Your grandmother’s whoring. Went to bed, gave some head, and her remains were spread out among twenty different trashcans the next morning.
12. It keeps the beat for me. Falling from the sky at whatever speed the laws of physics dictate it falls at, the rain beats on the awning outside my living room window. The book in front of me falls victim to the beat’s hypnotizing effect. I’m asleep within minutes.
13. The president stepped from the emergency exit of the White House and was escorted to an armored vehicle nearby. From all around the secured perimeter of the lawn, the moans of the dead cried out for the flesh of the living soldiers who were there for one purpose - to make sure that the leader of the free world survived. The president took one last look around at his home and then at the reanimated faces of his former constituents and shook his head. He put his hand on the shoulder of the marine next to him.
“If we’d only know what was in that fucking rain, Tommy. We’d have been able to prevent some of this.”
8. “Honey, did you remember your mesh poncho?”
“Aw Mom…It’s barely raining.”
“Fine, but if your radiation badge turns the slightest bit red, you get back into this house.”
“Yes m’am.”
9. Do you remember the night that my mom died? Do you remember how it rained as we made love? Do you remember how you convinced me not to stop and answer my phone? I said that any call at three a.m. was an emergency. You replied that whatever it was could wait. Then, you were in the shower and I was still lying in bed. I could smell the mix of your scent on the sheets and the odor of your body wash coming from the bathroom. I picked up my cellphone, checked my voicemail, and it was my sister. She was crying and saying that mom had been in an accident and arrived dead to the hospital 3 hours ago.
Do you remember that night? That last night we had sex?
10. Nelson lay chained to the pipe, investigating the hole he’d been left in. When he grimaced, his broken jaw screamed in pain. His memory was still foggy, but he remembered being at the club. He remember the amazingly beautiful woman dancing with him. He remembered her husband coming at him in the parking lot later. After that, everything was a blur. As it started to rain, and the water pooled in the bottom of the hole. He started screaming for help. By the time the water was up to his shins, he’d lost his voice.
11. It’s raining. It’s pouring. Your grandmother’s whoring. Went to bed, gave some head, and her remains were spread out among twenty different trashcans the next morning.
12. It keeps the beat for me. Falling from the sky at whatever speed the laws of physics dictate it falls at, the rain beats on the awning outside my living room window. The book in front of me falls victim to the beat’s hypnotizing effect. I’m asleep within minutes.
13. The president stepped from the emergency exit of the White House and was escorted to an armored vehicle nearby. From all around the secured perimeter of the lawn, the moans of the dead cried out for the flesh of the living soldiers who were there for one purpose - to make sure that the leader of the free world survived. The president took one last look around at his home and then at the reanimated faces of his former constituents and shook his head. He put his hand on the shoulder of the marine next to him.
“If we’d only know what was in that fucking rain, Tommy. We’d have been able to prevent some of this.”
