Short Story – Rain
Photo credit: hurley_gurlie182 from morguefile.com
Its funny how a thing you love can end up harming you. Killing you even, as in my case. But frankly speaking, I couldn’t have chosen a better way of leaving than this. ‘This’ meaning on my way home from my Best Friend’s house; in my car; listening to “Dare you to Move” by Switchfoot on the radio and not to mention seeing the delightful ripples made by the heavy downpour on the windshield. I was so engrossed in singing along with the song and inhaling the typical smell of the rain that I did not even notice that there was a turn ahead. The incessant rain was almost like a thick layer of fog, anyway making it difficult to see beyond a few meters and on top of that I was too busy loving the way the cold drops of shower, that came in through the open window, felt on my arm.
I turned the steering wheel just in time. If it had not been raining I would probably be home by now, drinking hot coffee in my bed. But as it was raining-something that had made me jump up and down in glee that morning-I was so not at home.
I was instead sprawled upon the broken car seat; my head on the steering wheel; the wheel covered with blood and blood dripping everywhere staining the car seat.
I had not expected the rear wheel of my car to slip on the wet ground and hit the wall of the turning point. But I guess as they say-“Expect the unexpected.”
I don’t know when, I don’t know how but I knew then, I won’t be able to survive. It was just my luck, that the road ahead was deserted. I guess everyone else was not as foolish as me to be driving in the rain.
Ah, the rain !! When I was a teenager, I had this theory of mine about the rain. I thought or rather felt that no matter HOW bad the conditions were, no matter WHO died, WHO lost, WHATEVER happened, if it was raining everything was gonna be alright.
My friends mocked me, teased me, laughed at me but it wasn’t something I had decided. My heart had made the decision and my brain had just known.
My mother gave me an umbrella everyday to carry to school. But no matter HOW heavily it rained, the umbrella remained right there, carefully packed in my bag.
It’s a very silly thing to admit in front of the everyone but I had always secretly wished that a perfume be made-rain scented. Not so that I would smell like the rain but so that I could smell my favourite scent those months between November and June.
I have no better way of describing the sound of the rain than by quoting H.W. Longfellow-“How it clatters along the roofs like the tramp of hoofs”. He’s absolutely right !!
Infact once when I had gone to Fort William to see a horse race. I had immediately looked up at the sky thinking it was raining, once the race had begun. It was a melody.
And it was a pure bliss listening to it as everything started fading away. I didn’t worry about my family. They would find me eventually and just like the sky right now, their eyes would do the same. But I was not gonna think about anyone then and there. It wearied me enough just to try to stay awake to listen to the song of the rain for a few last minutes. And the music in my heart I bore, long after I was there no more. . .
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