After the Rain

She places her palm against the cold misty window staring straight ahead thinking of nothing. A Pajero cruises past the murky rain water splashing a filthy beggar on the street below. The homeless bum shouts out, “Screw you, asshole!”

She feels the cool water running down the pane as her right palm makes an imprint against the glass, and thinks of a memory. A distant one of a boy playing in rain puddles. A smile grows on her face as the lad in her mind, splashes around, blissfully unaware. A boy she wishes would be blissfully unaware now… when she wants him to be, most. She thought things would never change between her and him. The boy she once thought whom she might grow to love. There were friends first. Didn’t that count? She wants things to be normal. She thinks she should write him a letter. Clear things out. Be friends again. But something stops her each time. Maybe she has her pride too. Or maybe she doesn’t really need to. She doesn’t know the answer. For a long time, she had wished that she’d know the answer but now, she thinks that she couldn’t care less.

A slamming door breaks through her reverie. She walks up to the next room and shuts close the window.

It’s really cold, tonight, she thinks. She wraps her arms around herself to feel warm. And her inner eye sparkles at another memory, when they had first kissed. Her and him. It wasn’t perfect but it was something she’d never forget. It was dark that night, as they sat on the steps of a staircase and he made her feel so very nice. It was something she hadn’t expected and that probably made it special, nonetheless. A smile teases the corner of her mouth.

She should call him. Just for fun. Talk. But she doesn’t and she knows why.
She believes things happen for a reason. She doesn’t like to question, she likes to be told.

It’s going to be really different between them no matter how much she wishes things would be just normal…. Uncomplicated and no reason for explanations.

Hmmm, it’s stopped raining, she thinks.

She opens the window once more.

And then, like the clarity of a sky after the rain, the inky azure that seems to have been washed and cleansed completely, she realizes that some things whether good or bad will never change. They shall always remain with her in heart and mind. It’s just sometimes, on occasion, perhaps on a rainy day like today that a gift of a memory would bless her with a smile.

She rushes to open her drawer hastily while rummaging for something. Her fingers close in on a bottle of nail-paint. She paints her nails a fiery hot red.

©Roanna Fernandes, 2008