The Rain is Nothing
Shaky hands reach for her face and touch
damp cheeks collecting a mixture of rain and what might have been tears
had she not told herself this time she wouldn’t cry. If people are the
sum of their experiences, then what does it mean when one has no sum?
Someone, say a young woman, who has experienced a small part of the
world and yet has nothing to show for it: no wisdom, no accumulated
knowledge, no sage advice for the younger generation. Just a blank face,
and a dumb expression, and a fierce will not to cry. Though even that is
failing her.
“I’m so sorry.”
It is her favorite shirt. As the tears well up she feels ridiculous. A
shirt means nothing in the grand scheme of things. She can go to the
store and buy an identical one any time she wants. Buy one that fits
better, maybe. Her clothes have been baggy lately, a consequence of
losing so much weight in such a short period of time. Buy one of a
different color, perhaps. Purple instead of blue. Her parents will give
her the money.
“Can you ever forgive me?”
She thinks no, and says yes, and decides that maybe she isn’t as shallow
as she fears; maybe she is so upset because this is the culminating
event in what has been a very bad day. Yes, that’s it. The straw that
broke the camel’s back. And this day has been the culmination of a bad
week, and a bad month, and a bad year. Now, with coffee dripping through
her favorite shirt, soaking in to stain her bra, while the sky makes
good on its threat and opens up with rain, she feels the lowest she has
ever felt, and knows that nothing could get worse than this. Now it is
time for her life to get better. She doesn’t believe in a higher power,
but surely the universe owes her some justice. She has waited so long,
sixteen years too long.
***
Trembling hands grasp the paper, wrinkling it. Cold sweat smears the
ink, but the first words are still visible. The rest of the letter is
irrelevant. She doesn’t want to hear their reasons or their excuses. The
simple fact of the matter, the one they are too polite and too cruel to
say, is that she just isn’t good enough. She should have tried harder.
“You have other choices.”
Other choices, but not this choice. This is supposed to go right. This
is supposed to be effortless. What else can she do? Her own
justifications, however, are cheap and false. She could have done a lot
more. She could have worked instead of sleeping in on the weekends. She
could have studied harder, gotten the application in earlier. Anything
to keep her choices open. The truth is she doesn’t want to make a
decision, and hopes they are willing to accept a waffler sidling along
the edges looking for the nearest escape route in case she needs to use
it.
“Are you going to be okay?”
Of course. She has been through this kind of disappointment before. It
is, in fact, the story of her life, but she does not accept that it will
always be like this. Once she is out of high school it will be better.
She will begin to have the kind of life she has seen others have, the
pretty and popular ones who go out on Friday nights and have attractive
boyfriends. High school is a disappointment to many people. She just
refuses to take part in the shallow teenage culture, and that’s why she
has always been so miserable. It will all get better soon. When she’s
grown up, and not subject to such pettiness, her life will begin. She
has waited eighteen years. No one stays at rock-bottom forever.
***
Pale hands pull at her black pants. They are too tight. In an attempt to
make herself feel better, she bought them one size too small and
convinced herself that they fit. She is struck by how much can change in
a day, and wonders about her past self, the one who was so happy and
carefree.
“This is very difficult, I know.”
It really isn’t difficult, as long as she doesn’t think. The smell of
flowers is overwhelming. It vaguely reminds her of the gift her one and
only boyfriend gave her once, a well-intentioned but terrible present of
perfume. She wishes that she could go home and sleep. It’s much easier
to go through life when she isn’t conscious for most of it. Some people
walk by and she cannot remember their names. Hadn’t she told herself at
the family reunion last year that she would remember everyone’s name?
She realizes her memory is almost as reliable as her convictions.
“It’s time.”
Yes, she’s certainly not going to stick around here any longer. She’ll
go home and sleep, maybe eat some of the food various family members
have brought her. She thinks her life before all this happened. She must
have been happy then, because she does not remember ever feeling worse
than this. Yet she knows, in some back part of her mind, that she has
been unhappy before. Her experiences mean nothing, however, because she
cannot seem to learn from them. She is as blank as she has ever been,
and as full of self-hatred.
It’s just a rut, she decides. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow she will
be happier. It’s her due, what the world owes her for twenty-one years
of sadness. Yes, tomorrow she will break free from the gravity well of
her own misery. Her life will finally begin.
"The Rain is Nothing" is copyright © K. B. Cunningham 2005
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