April Showers

A bus ride through the Dublin rain.

If I focus hard enough I can see my own reflection in the front window of the bus, against the darkening April sky. So I don't, and look past it and down at the streets in front of me, heavy with rain. It's been going on for days, falling steadily against the upstairs window of the doubledecker. The world feels like something obscure and hidden from me in a package of moving, cold water. The famous Dublin rain. The traffic lights change from green to orange, and the bus driver speeds up for a second before deciding he won't make it, and coming to a screeching halt as they turn red. I reach out an arm to steady myself and not crash into the window, and my mp3-player falls out of my jacket pocket. As I regain my balance I see a young man on a bicycle cross the road right in front of me. For a second I think it's you, and as the dark shape disappears beneath the view of the window, I press my nose against the cold glass and try to see. A gasp escapes me as I imagine you being thrust off your bike, and sliding underneath the wheels. A fog is forming on the window, from my hot breath, and through it I see the lights again turn green. With a sudden jolt that throws me back into my seat, the bus starts moving, and I close my eyes, waiting for the impact, my heart beating hard against my ribs. Nothing happens, and I open them slowly to see the shadowy silhouette disappear around a street corner. It's not you. It couldn't be you. Do you remember sitting next to me, talking non-stop in your American accent? I liked hearing you, though I didn't really listen. Through the window I would watch the rain bounce off the concrete ground and people's umbrellas, like ricochets. Under a bus shelter a group of people in rain coats over their suits were huddling up, trying to light their cigarettes. One of them looked reproachfully up at the sky, f*g in mouth, water dripping from his hair. "How doth the little crocodile," I murmured to myself, fingerpainting a halo over the man's head in the mist on the window. You stopped talking to ask what I was doing. I shrugged and leaned back against the seat, staring at the droplets forming lines on the window in front of me, as the bus again started to move forward. The colours were bleeding into each other, and street lights sprinkled the glass with a speckled, golden glimmer. No wipers clear the water off the front window up here, and through the lines I stared mechanically at the distorted reality of the outside world. The one in which the real people live. That was the last time I saw you. I'm doing the same today, stealing glances of a reality I'm not sure if I'm a part of. I'm in the front seat, where we used to sit together. Plenty of room for our feet and rucksacks, and for a chill down our backs as cars seem to disappear underneath the vehicle with every red light. We silently, breathlessly, waited for the crash, but it never came. Picking up my mp3-player, I turn up the volume. I don't want to get back out into the rain, and realise that the bus itself has become my closest comfort zone. I don't want to give up this seat, because nobody else deserves it. Nobody else would see the magic of it. Overwhelmed by these thoughts of possession, I pull my knees up to my chest and curl up against the side window. I swear I can feel the rain through it, washing over my skin. Not in waves, but like a cold shower, and as I glide through the air on the sound of a soft vocal and fleeting guitar, I secretly wish it could cleanse me on the inside as well, and run through my body like a powerful deluge, a flood washing out everything I've collected in there. I missed my stop a while ago anyway. I wish it would never stop raining. We never change, do we? We never learn, do we?     ~~~ The End (lyrics from Coldplay)

Reviews

[Poppy]

Another really good piece. It's actually made me really sad, such a horrible sense of loss, loneliness and isolation from the rest of the world, captured so effectively. And I've got to appreciate the description of British weather, I've actually never been to Ireland but that bus ride feels so familiar to me, living in Wales!

It gives a really good window into a person's life and their emotional state. All in all a very moving story. Awesome!