Rain

It was the dead of night; unfathomable darkness pervaded everything.  It flowed in the gaps between roots and undergrowth, clotted out the nexus of branches overhead, seeped in on us like liquid…filling up all interstices.  The rain grew heavier: hundreds of large drops, cold as ice, drummed down on our heads and shoulders, dissolving whatever layer of warmth lay between our skin and clothing.

“We need to find shelter,” I said.  “We can’t keep this up.”  We were getting soaked to the skin.

thud.

“Oof!” Sailor said.  She lurched to a stop, as if she’d run into something solid. Her grip on my hand tightened.  I felt her take my momentum into her arm.  I stopped.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.  But check this out,” she whispered.  She pulled my hand forward through the rainy, inky darkness until it touched something cold, metallic, round.  With her wet hand over mine, she rotated the thing.  It was a doorknob.  The door swung open.  A soft yellow light revealed the door to be a low-arched, wooden, cut from the trunk of a primeval tree right at the center of our path.

“Shelter,” she said.  We ducked through and closed the door behind us.  We were out of the rain.

 

 

Wake up Hollow

“Yes,” I said, “That sounds good…I don’t think…”

“What is it?”

I watched the way Sailor swayed a little, standing in front of the sink, filling a kettle with water.  There was a hollow rushing sound.  I could see the way the incandescent kitchen light caught the leaves of the vine growing in the dark window.  The bright light had been momentary, a flash.  It was night again.  There was only one light on, a small overhead bulb.

I sat down near the small wooden table.

“I don’t think I’ve had tea in a long time.”

“You’re not a tea drinker.”

“I’m a fuckin’ addict, is what I am.  Tea doesn’t make for much of an addiction.”

“I never really got it, the addiction thing.”

“Have you ever sat up alone at night in your own apartment, here, where you feel comfortable?”

“Maybe once.”

“But felt there was something missing?”

“Well, maybe.”

“I have that all the time.  And once I try to start filling that, I can’t shut if off.  I just can’t.  I wake up hollow.  And all I want to do is fill it.  Anything else is a fucking lie.”

We were still rushing along, as if we were inside of a train.