Dying in a Downpour – A Short Short Story

Rain is just rain, unless you are dying. The vibrations of the drops pelted against my skin as I stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of Dr. Easton's office. I stood still, letting each watery bead pop and drizzle, each bead magnifying in my mind like a tsunami surging and cresting around the one thought in my brain. I closed my eyes and tilted back my head; the river from the sky mingled with the ocean breaking through my lashes. The roar of the downpour pressed against me. The greyness shadowed over my shoulder.

In that moment, I saw each solitary droplet, a perfect circle reflecting the world around it, a fleeting flash captured in the essence of liquid. A time capsule. A mirror. An eye on the seconds swimming by, the doe-eyed young mother standing at the curb, her face full of the future as she stared down at the umbrella-shielded baby in the stroller; yet one glistening orb took note of the twitch in her fake smile as she glanced at the career-embodied woman darting from the yellow cab. The rain wondered what she regretted as it streaked onto the back of the fleeing woman. She held her briefcase from the past and above her head, cursing as the slicky sidewalk drenched her red-soled shoes and the air frizzed her greying hair. The rain broke harder, delighting in the mischievous grin she cast upon the young messenger boy as he sped by on his ten-speed. The rain pondered what she left behind as it beat against the muscles of the rushing guy. He popped a wheelie to the here and now, oblivious to the honking horns, as the oil-slick streets spattered against his calves and his faded blue shirt drank the water. The rain thickened hard against his perseverance, sloshing resistance as he broke through a puddle to send a spray into the opened window of a cab. The rain questioned to what he raced as it slithered down the old cabbie's raised fist. He rolled up the window against time as a puff of cigarette smoke mingled with the mist and he wiped the residual liquid from his ruddy brow. The rain clouds rumbled and contemplated what he feared as it beat against the window, unable to reach the woman seated in the back seat of the cab. She shivered from the chill, but smiled, knowing she had many more miles to go before she braved the storm, before she tasted the stream of time upon her lips. Yet, the rain examined her misplaced surety as her eyes touched upon the vision of me standing on the sidewalk. I was a passing vision, nothing more; and the rain, a mere inconvenience.

They all moved on with their lives; all things replaced with another sunny hue. Yet, my tears flowed into the vacuous depths of the street drains, carrying with them the leaves and trash of the world. The dirt of my heart. The mire of this disease. My rain eased to single pronounced droplets from the corner of the awning, plopping onto the glistening concrete and answering my life in a simple resolute response to not forget the details as I travel this path. I took a deep breath and looked to the heavens as the sun peeked through the silver-lined clouds. Reaching in my purse, I pulled out my sunglasses and covered my puffy eyes, lifted my chin and took one step . . . and another . . . and another, until I found the pace that matched the patter of waking to another soft dew-covered morning . . . and another . . . and another. . . and another . . .etcetera . . . etcetera . . . etcetera, with no ending, period