Rain

A short story

I was looking at the wide expanse of the serene sky when I felt droplets of water falling on my cold hands. My first thought was that it must be the first rain shower of the season. Yes, it indeed was the first shower of winter. Winter, that had come into my life and was flowing as rivers from my eyes. I was puzzled. I didn't mean to cry. What was happening to me?

It's about the time when I was a kid. I'd been brought up in a rather unhappy family. I used lay in my mother's lap most of the times. I was a very silent child. I was too stubborn to let go of my silent companion. The drops of the rainfall used to come down dancing till they came into contact with my poisonous aura which killed them, they fell down lifelessly on my hands.  I used to sit under the sky of maddening depression and stare at the corpses around me. The smell of the blood on my hands had become a unique attar of my body. I had a certain hatred - or love, who knows?- for my mother's tears. I didn't want her salty tears from her wounded eyes, fall on my wounded hands and make my soul another murderer. I used to sit under the rain and get myself all wet. But the water fell from the sky was different than the water that bathe my body and yet, very different from the myrrh that bathe my soul. I was contented.

My father slapped me once. According to him, I was a possessed by a bad spirit. But wasn't God the baddest of all? I started going to school a little later than I was supposed to. We weren't allowed to play in the school garden during rainy seasons but my season had come and I started skipping school. I used to get off the school bus at strange stops and sit and wait for rain to pour. No, I wasn't the kind who had no friends. I never showed any interest in betraying my friend and befriending the school kids but, they were always strangely attracted towards me. They used to invite me at parties and I was forced to go. I did go to the parties, I did go. I knew that one of my class mates had a swimming pool in her garden. I started going to his house frequently. My parents were happy that I was socializing. We used to sit inside the pool for hours because he knew that I loved being inside it. I used to jump into the water and hold my breath for seconds. His mother knew my strange hobby and thought that I was just being naughty like the other kids usually are. Once, I stayed inside the water for a little (or more) longer. She jumped into the pool but she couldn't find me anywhere. I was nowhere to be seen. But I was just there, one with the water, hundred with the drops.  She was terrified. She had looked almost everywhere and she could swear to God that I was a ghost who had just disappeared. She asked the servants to unfill the pool. The water had gone and so had I. She called my parents only to get laughed at. My mother told her that I had never gone to her house and I was enjoying the first rainfall of the season with her. Yes, I'd been sitting under the rain. I never met that guy or his mother after that. I loved their pool. I don't know where did they go and why. But, I was contented.

Anyway, moving on, I asked my mother to get a swimming pool built outside our house. She didn't pay much attention to my pleas. So, I went and sat under the shower. It was the perfect imitation of a rainfall. I had fallen asleep under the shower and my mother was banging the door with fright. She thought I was dead  I was cold and motionless as a stone. She called the doctor. He said that I had passed out due to exposure to a very high temperature. But when mother had cone inside the bathroom, the shower had been running ice cold water. She was confused but, she decided to forget about it. For her, the big deal was that I was okay.  She was contented.

Three years later, a baby boy was born to my mother. My little brother. He was the only one who could enchant me. I had no control over my senses around him. I used to sit beside my mother and stare endlessly at my brother in her lap. Steadily, his presence became important to me and I almost forgot about rain and my mother's tears. Happiness had come with his coming. And yes, summer had taken its first step towards me. But, now after 16 years, here I am. The mirror in my mind has been inclined to such an angle, that it reflects the past memories. One by one, all the memories come towards me and hit me in the face. Winter has come. 

And now that my mother was happy or contented, I'd started missing the sadness that had grown on me. My hands/body begged my mind to transform nostalgia into reality. And I had come to a point in my life, where the wide, engulfing sky had (no stories to tell) become a stimulus. Nowadays, I find myself seated under the rain of my emotions or madness, I am contented.

Reviews

[uzair zahid]

Amazingly... Outstanding... Liked it very much... Keep it up.! :)
i took me into the world of dreams...

[Sami Khalil]

I like this story alot. The connection to water , rain , sadness and unhappy home are all evident and then the contended part...I like the realization at the end...All wonderful...:)..............