Fray – II. Deluge

-It kept you warm that winter when you purchased it. It fit snuggly; yet loose enough to be the most comfortable article in your entire wardrobe. It was only the rain, which led successful campaigns against the cotton and wool fibers and concatenation of frays that wrapped themselves around your frame, from the soft bundle of the hood-folded, a make shift pillow at the back of your neck-to the tapered end hanging half way down your bottom, an inch from reaching the V from where your pants’ legs grew. It was the rain that proved the sweatshirt was not in fact impervious, as it had felt up until that moment, that first drop of rain.
That day on which you had slept in and missed your morning class having opened your eyes at the usual time and noticed the sun had missed its morning mark to rouse you. That day you rushed out of the house still drowsy, the weight of accumulated slumber still pressing on your eyelids. There had been no time to take a look out your window, no time to brush aside the blinds and check the day’s clemency. You opened your eyes once more to find that time had passed over you without so much as a rustling of leaves in its passing. You rolled, pushed, fell and found yourself standing at the side of your bed. You grabbed what was near, the tattered back pack-empty from a night of studying, but zipped closed, your superstition about carrying energy from one building to another-and your sweatshirt, a couple of weeks worn, but still the shield it had become to you from that moment when you first let it slip over and onto you.
Your sneakers were still on your feet. You had slept in them. And as you ran you could feel your socks sticking to the skin on your feet-a product of the humidity built up in the sneakers as you slept, the only part of you that had kept warm through the night. You wanted to sit and wiggle your feet inside the sneakers, press down and forward to liberate the skin stuck to your socks, but you had only enough time for the thought, as you managed to loosen the chain around your weather worn ten speed. You jumped on and used all your energy to peddle, all thoughts instantly went dark and the only thing registering in your awareness was the singular thought of movement and arrival. And as you sped over the sleeked streets, wet by the predawn tears of the sun mourning the loss of its post, due to the seasonal shift, you felt that first drop of visible rain. It was not you who witnessed its falling, you were merely the target, the being who registered its damp existence.
It was a bird, the same bird you had seen shivering under the overhanging of your roof, the one you shooed away, who witnessed the falling of that first drop. It had watched it crawl out of that dark cloud, which attempted to hold it back but in a twitch of sunlight gave it freedom. The bird had watched as the drop bounced around the cloud and as the twitch of sunlight pierced the cloud’s dark. The bird had watched, as it tucked itself into an opening in one of the Shrine’s ledges, covered by another overhanging ledge above it. It also watched you as you sped through the narrow street below; it watched you without giving so much as a warning squawk. It closed its eyes and ruffled its feathers, warming itself as you approached, unknowingly, the X the water drop had chosen as its landing.
As you hydroplaned along the slick surface, your skin turned red by the cold breeze rubbing against it, you felt it. You felt the drop as it pierced your armor, as it dampened the crest, having swooped down and into your path, splashed onto the red letters of the sweatshirt. Immediately following it, immediately following that first drop, the clouds lost their grip on the deluge they had been holding back. And after that twitch of sunlight, that ray that had fought against the clouds, the defeat of summer was pronounced with the storming of millions of raindrops. An echoing cry of victory as you still shivered from the cold sensation that ran through your veins as soon as your crest was pierced. The battalion that followed only made its way into your awareness, as you squeezed at the back wheel’s brake, moments later. Your tire sliding back and forth from side to side, nearly toppling you over, your hand reaching, out at the last second managing to grasp onto the lamp post nearby, your sweatshirt drenched. As you stood there, the water blurred the world in front of you and you shivered again, cars applying brakes and skidding into the intersection at your feet.
As you stood there you could feel the cold biting into you as water continued to fall and trail down your brow, then onto your defeated sweatshirt. You walked your bike across the street, making your way through the puzzle of cars, those that had not managed to stop until meeting resistance and those that had managed to stop with so much force they had exhausted themselves. As you walked, the warm humidity in your shoes succumbing to the cool stream of water now flowing down the street. With that last step across and onto the inundated curb, you felt your clothes clinging, your shoes drenched, and the absence of the weight of extra sleep. You jumped back on the bike and started peddling again, perfunctorily. You tried to speed up, thinking if you managed enough speed your exposure to the downpour might be lessened, but it proved a feat you were then, at that point, incapable of.
The wheels turning on the bike becoming immersed in puddles, splashing upward sprays of water, which collapsed with the force of gravity, having attempted a return to the sky, to the cloud that released them; falling back and onto your leg, collecting at the bend in your lower limbs, from where your feet grow. They soaked through the thick tongue of your shoe and seeped into the only dry part of your clothing, the upper portion of your socks. You felt the weight and it dragged on you. It stole from you the strength provided by the deep breaths you were taking, the ones you released as white clouds, your only defense against the rain’s campaign on your sweatshirt. As you rolled through the mostly empty walkways of the campus, your shoulders slumped and your grip loosened on the handlebars. Your bike, your body, you, remained in motion simply because you had been in motion. The force of gravity slowed you, and against the weight of water you closed your eyes.
Your movement forward continued, increasingly unsteady, until you came to an abrupt stop. There was a yelp and you managed to open your eyes to see the blurry image of the world shift, as you toppled over. You looked up and standing over you was a woman with an umbrella. She bent over you, shielding her face from the rain with the umbrella in her hand.
“You’re at fault,” she said with a smile.
She extended her arm to you and you took it, standing up unsteadily under the pressure of the rain, still pouring from the same cloud. She shielded you both from the rain as the two of you stood there, your hands cupped together as you blew warm white clouds onto them.
“Are you o.k.?” she asked.
You shivered and nodded.
“Class has been canceled,” she said.
You let out a sigh raising your shoulders only to let them fall again. You looked at your hands and they’d turned blue It was an effort to make a fist.
“You want coffee?” you asked.
“Is that my recompense,” she retorted.
You smiled, or thought you smiled, your face so numb you couldn’t even feel your lips. She picked up your bike as you stood frozen. You put your hands on the handlebar, you couldn’t get a firm grip; you just rested them on the bars and maneuvered shakily. She laughed.
“Didn’t you see the clouds?” she asked, indicating her umbrella,
“it’s always better to be prepared.”
You didn’t say anything you just shivered as raindrops skirted the umbrella and landed on you. They were like cold pricks on your skin, even though you were still wearing the sweatshirt, it had lost the battle against the falling water.