Day 139 - Rain Story

Rain Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

It was a good rain, a hard and heavy torrential downpour – that once a year sort of rain that comes from nowhere and has the power to change everything. It had been a dark day and then a dark night and the next morning was no brighter. The clouds were everywhere. The temperature dropped. The wind picked up. It was memorable. It was a good rain.

On the second day of rain, Sam went out puddle splashing with his friends. It was an activity for children and adults alike. Sam felt too old on that spectrum too often. The rain came at a perfect time. He needed something to feel energetic over. He had read somewhere that there was actually a holiday for stepping in puddles and splashing friends. It had seemed absolutely absurd when he first read about it, and yet, here he was doing the same thing and having a lot of fun. He wondered if the founders of the holiday had thought things out enough though – it was scheduled for early January. How on earth was that a good idea? Ridiculous.  Way too cold. And there was no way they could guarantee it would be raining. And even if it were to happen to rain that day, again with the ‘way too cold’ problem. And scheduling fun seemed sort of ridiculous too. It was like the people that scheduled sex. Did you have to do it, even if you didn’t feel like it? Didn’t that defeat the whole purpose of having something be fun? Wasn’t spontaneity part of the fun? Or maybe by following through and making oneself try, it meant that it actually might happen. Maybe by closing himself off to this great idea, he was somehow eliminating the possibility from his life. Maybe that was why he didn’t have enough fun or sex in his life. Maybe he should make more calendars and arbitrarily schedule more events. He was probably overthinking things. He did that from time to time. The founders of the holiday were probably just trying to have a good time. If so, then mission accomplished.

Sam had an ‘Old Man Knee.’ He had played too hard in high school and college and his left knee had paid for it. When it rained, his knee ached. He was barely into his thirties, but his knee made him feel fifty. If he had been a professional athlete he was sure there was some injection or procedure he could have had that would fix everything. But a rich athlete he was not. So he had an achy knee problem that probably meant he would have more pain to come the older he got. Sam and his ‘Old Man Knee’ took a break from the water wars of his comrades and he went off to sit on a park bench and try to massage the pain away, as if that ever did any good.

Then, when Sam was all alone, sitting all by his lonesome, that was when it began. “Squeak, squeak …” “Squeak, squeak …” It was the sound of rubber shoes noisily walking his way. Sam looked around, but saw no one. A fog had come rolling in as the night drew on. The park suddenly seemed to have a foul and spooky mood. It was like a cheap horror film or kids playing too much with a smoke machine. Either way, Sam couldn’t see much in any direction. He wondered if he was going to be able to find his friends. He had his cellphone. Hopefully they would too.

There in the distance the sounds came again, closer and closer. “Squeak, squeak …”“Squeak, squeak …” Someone was walking his way.

Then in a moment of clarity, from out of the fog she stepped. She emerged as if from nowhere, and yet she could have never been anywhere else except in that fog, just beyond his view.

She walked a meaningless walk, lackadaisically along a jogger’s path, paying attention to no one but herself. If it hadn’t been late in a dark, fog-covered park, it would have just seemed like any other stroll. But here and now it seemed weird and out of place. No one should seem so mindless in this situation. The park could be full of dangerous and strange men with who knows what sort of intent. Sam thought about that thought for a second – he himself could be perceived as a strange man alone in the park. He hoped he didn’t look nefarious. Did nefarious people know they looked nefarious? He assumed they knew. He was almost sure of it and sure that no one would think that of him. Same time though, with all that fog and darkness setting in, he had no idea who or what else was out there. There could be a lot of dangerous types lurking just off in the distance, hidden in the fog. He was starting to freak himself out a little bit. It was about time for him to get moving and find his friends, he was sure of that.

Two nights later Sam went to a coffee shop with a few friends to watch an acoustic open mic night. Oddly enough the girl from the park was at the coffee shop too. She sat with some of her girl friends and drank her coffee and listened to the music. Sam thought about crossing the room and trying to talk to her, but he froze up and chickened out when she started talking to some of the performers. Clearly she was friends with them. Sam didn’t know why that was intimidating but it was. It had always been. People with talents scared him. They did things. Things that other people couldn’t do. That was strange. That was special. He imagined artists and musicians and other creative types just sat around and knew each other and did impressing things all the time. It was hard to think of them as normal. Somehow, just by knowing a musician, this mysterious woman was suddenly special and out of his league. He wouldn’t know what to say to her and he certainly wouldn’t know how to impress her. And he certainly couldn’t conceive of a world where she was as normal as he was. So he stayed with his friends and grumbled and brooded. He would slip out later and make sure not to make eye contact with her. He couldn’t risk her recognizing him from the park the other night. He was sure if they made eye contact that she would recognize him and she would know that he knew her and that he had seen her before and done nothing. He was sure all of that would be conveyed by the fear on his face. And then she would know that he was embarrassed and it would ruin any chance he would ever have with her. So instead of looking at her, he sulked out and didn’t speak to her, thereby ruining any chance he would ever have with her.

It rained the next day. The forecast was for clear skies. The rain was supposed to be over. But there it was. Coming down, all around. Rain everywhere. The sky had opened up and had done what it wanted to do.

Sam went to the park and sat down at the same bench and waited. Why? Because that was where he had seen her before. That was where he hoped to see her again.