Title: A Thousand Drops of Rain

Author: ~Jewelz~

Rating: PG? Maaaaybe PG-13... but probably not... I don't think...

Banner:


Notes:
Inspired by the song "Another Grey Day in the Big Blue World" by Maaya Sakamoto. You can find the lyrics here. Much thanks to Raine (though she may never know it), for having used the song in the intro of one of her fics that I do believe died (though I think she's redone it....) Anyway, yay and thanks to her for using the song and posting a link to it. No, of course I do not own the song, but all the events, characters and so forth in this fic come from the frightening depths of my own imagination (though I must admit that the house is loosely based on my aunt and uncle's house in Santa Cruz, haha).

Also, this basically started out as a writing exercise I determined for myself- a fic based on description (adjectives!) rather than dialogue (thank God for thesauruses!), or even events. So please pardon it if you don't like it- though I hope you do!- it's all just for fun.

Now then, to get on with it already...

~*~
It was the intrusive wind flowing over the windowpane that finally pulled her from a restless sleep, drawing her back to a life that she had never intended to live. Her heavy eyelids protested as she peeked through them at her translucent curtains blowing away from their place over her window by the pushing of that wind. She shivered in the bed and curled her legs to her chest, not yet able to face herself. His scent was already lost from the collared shirt that she had pulled over her tired frame again last night, but wearing it let her feel that he was closer again, if only by a breath. As the cold crept up her bare legs she shivered again and moved her fingers to her eyes to rub away the sleep.

The room in which she slept had never been intended for her. And the house which enclosed her small world belonged to someone whom she would never see again. Wooden beams stretched up the corners of the walls and met in the middle, above the foot of the bed, which was still placed in the middle of the room between two nightstands. When they left, she had not had the heart to rearrange their home. It did not matter that they were never coming back; their home would still always be ready for them if they did.

When she saw that the wind had begun to spray rain across the white windowsill, she finally drew in a tired breath and uncurled herself to close the window. Her fingertips brushed across the pale blue walls and the cold wood flooring made her feet ache as she made her way to the open window. Outside she could see endless gray skies pouring out their tears over the world. Not one ray of sunshine was able to slip through their barrier. No one ran along the sidewalk seeking shelter from the showers, everyone else seemed to still be warm in beds that belonged to them. And the world was still but for the violent wind and tearful sky.

She sighed sadly at the sight and then curled her fingertips briefly out into the world to pull down the window that always seemed to defy gravity in order to open itself while she slept. Or perhaps it was in her dreams that she pulled it away to greet the world she could never escape from.

Once she had replaced the barrier between the room and their world, she could feel the silence of the house wrap around her. A familiar chill in turn wrapped itself around her heart, and she focused on the sound of her own breath in order to remember that silence still held life; stifled as it was.

It was then that she made the mistake of glancing across the room at the oval mirror that hung over her sister's vanity. She feebly pushed herself away from the window and wandered across the room to sit on the cushioned chair in front of it. All of her sister's make up brushes (save a few) were left in their containers, their bristles stretching out toward the ceiling. She opened the drawers one by one, as she often found herself doing, and brushed her fingertips across the tops of all the makeup supplies her sister had left in the drawers. Each was perfectly organized, and combined they held every sort of means to any disguise.

The mirror loomed in front of her, ordering her to look into it, though she tried so desperately to keep her gaze on memories of her sister. Still, there it was, revealing every mark of pain that she refused to cover with her sister's belongings. Her eyes, which were once bright and vibrant with life, seemed dark next to her pale skin. Their emerald shade had faded to a dull darkness, rimmed by the pained circles around her eyes. Her hair was tangled from neglect, though she always managed to make it appear at least suitable for the nights she worked as a waitress at a bar downtown.

She stared intensely at her fading image, until all she could see was blurred into a mess of colors. Only then did she notice the tears forming in her eyes, and she shook them away fiercely. She did not have time for tears anymore; she only had the time to manage survival, somehow.

As if he could read her thoughts, predict her desire to give up on them, a faint crying drifted under the door frame from the room across the tiny hall. She snapped her head away from her reflection and pushed her exhausted body up and away from the vanity. Memories would have to wait for another grey day.

His crying grew louder as she paused for a brief moment outside his door, leaning her side against the wall at the end of their dark hallway to gather her strength. And then she pushed open the door between them and rushed to the side of his crib, pulling him up into her arms and whispering words of love into his innocent ears. The instant she had pulled him to her his crying had ceased, and now he cuddled his head into her shoulder. She pushed away her desire to replace him and run from the scene, and wandered over to the rocking chair in the corner. There she sat, holding his tiny frame close to her stomach for warmth.

He looked so much like his father in every way. The same bright eyes gazed back at her with innocent love that had so long ago shown the pain in his father's. She brushed her fingers over his feathery hair, cooing words of love as the rocking carried him slowly back to sleep. For the longest moment he simply gazed up at her, in all his innocence, as if he knew how she felt and yet never blamed her for it. His father's gaze had always shown the same.

As he drifted back to sleep, she let her gaze wander over the room, in all its half finished splendor. When her sister had learned that she was going to have him, she had immediately begun a frantic mission to recreate this room for him. She could remember the phone call from her sister, her words running together with excitement. He was going to bring her and her boyfriend together for good this time. No more fears of abandonment or betrayal; she knew he would never leave his child.

If only they had known.

After a few moments she gazed back down at his sleeping face and drew in a pained breath. The wallpaper covered only two thirds of the walls, and the only furniture her sister had placed in the tiny room was the crib and rocking chair. She had found a changing table in passing at a garage sale shortly after her sister had gone, and its sad frame leaned against the bare wall to her right. The only other object in the room was the makeshift mobile, of hangers and colorfully folded paper that his father had made for him so long ago.

She gently placed him back into the wooden crib and pulled a worn blanket over him. His father never would have let them live in such a cold world, even if he had to work everyday at miserable jobs to save them from it. Perhaps that was why he left.

The curtains over the baby's window lay limply in front of the glass, yet their transparency let the world right through them. How she wished to guard him from the bitter ice that led them where they were, but greyness found its way through no matter how she tugged those curtains closed. Never did it give them a moment of liberty.

Her footsteps echoed, hollow, as she finally drifted away from him, drawing the door silently closed behind her. Bed would bring little relief from troubled memories, and so she found herself ascending the cold wired spiral that reached up to the rest of the house. Out from its womb she climbed, to beg relief among higher things. Rough carpeting met her ice-cold feet and stretched out across the floor, side to side and forward until more cold wood broke its path at the tiny kitchen.

There she paused, her eyes resting on the tiny scrap of newspaper that haunted her. She reached out to gently brush it with her fingertips; her eyes closed to let the flood of memories stop her breath in a slow moment of weakness. How her heart crushed beneath the knowledge that this scrap of fading print was all she was ever to have of him. The dryness in her throat protested when she swallowed her tears and opened her eyes to let pale emerald orbs once more take in the bitterness.

“Local man killed in car accident.”

Damn the ice that had taken him from her further even than her sister ever could.

She blinked her eyes fiercely shut again and stepped past the memory, now set on drowning it out with the numbing cold and bitter coffee grounds. His favorite mug, his favorite brand of coffee; she used to tease his infatuation with it. Now she wrapped tired fingers around its heart wrenching salvation. Both hands hugging it to her as she once again crossed the brusque carpet toward the window.

Above her rose the ashen ceiling which came to a summit toward the dreary sky, around her circled the garish furnishings her sister had admired. His pictures spotted the wall to her left: sidewalks of the nameless, crowds of seagulls, her sister posing as a lone figure atop a sea cliff. Reminders of how he saw this world that refused him.

Melancholy; Beautiful.

Inside the top left drawer of the breakfront that had doubled as a table in the entryway lay a pile of pictures that had never made their way into frames. Pictures of people sitting along sidewalks, only beautiful to those who wanted to see the beauty in them. And a picture of her, perched on the railing of the upper deck, her drawing pad and charcoal held carefully in her hands.

She drew in a deep breath of aching air at the memory. It had been midmorning, and he was wearing the shirt that clothed her now along with the most hideous sweater in all creation. Her sister had hated it; she had smiled quietly to herself as he laughed at her serious expression and snapped pictures of her at work. The emotion of his pictures had let her sundress flow with the gentle wind, and captured the intensity of her eyes on her work. Work she could never have shown him, though both knew the forms her careful fingertips sketched onto that notepaper.

When he died, she buried her drawings in the hope chest and shoved the memory of him into the darkest corner of her heart, hoping to escape it there. But it was there that her world had shifted to follow him, there she lived out each day; in the very darkest place she could find.

Her dimmed emerald orbs shift upward, away from the cabinet, to the window upon which the sky wept torrents. Without another thought she took her bathrobe from its place, strewn across the back of the couch to her left, and pulled it around her. In another moment she had pulled open the door and stepped out upon the sodden wood deck.

In the rainwater reflections she found herself imagining what she once was; in the days when she sketched as her sister fussed and he captured it all. She saw, for a moment, her delicate sundress blowing with a gentle wind and felt the charcoal on the pads of her fingertips. But the wind blew harsher, and she pulled her realities back around herself as she perched on the edge of a chair left to itself in the weather.

Across from her quiet daffodils and lavender were bending beneath the weight of the shower, daisies peeking from under as if wondering if it was yet safe to show themselves. She leaned back in her seat, ignoring the rain as it soaked through her thin bathrobe and chilled even her numbness. Tired eyes gazed out at the petals that bowed under the world, accepting their fate.

And emeralds wept rainwater, mingling with it in such a way that even the sympathetic buds could not curve into understanding. Days and days and nights and mornings and rain and cloud and sunshine; they were wearisome to her.

The world had forsaken her; nothingness reigned eternal.

When the call came, the universe had forgotten to pause. It rushed on and without acquiescence threw her back against her plans; plans to leave and forget all that she could never have to find a place in fact made for her soul. But that trip out to find a satisfactory baby blanket had led her sister to the hospital and him beyond all connection. With a wave of her hand and a bag quickly packed, that ice let her sister softly into the night, off to catch a bus that would never come.

Never a letter, or a call. Never knock upon the door to reunite wandering child and golden bird for the sake of a child who would never grow to know his father.

A sharp tug from the strands of dripping hair tangled around her delicate fingers brought her a breath closer to reality. She could hardly think of how long she had been sitting stiffly in the chair-remembering- letting the clouds cry over her as she shivered mindlessly from the cold.

The loss of time made her draw in a sharply anxious gasp, a frightened thought that she had neglected him for too long. What horrible things could happen to such a gentle creature while her mind had wandered torturously. She jumped up as quickly as her tired body would allow and moved toward the door, her frozen feet screaming protests as she slammed them down upon their reflections in the puddles of ice water.

Her hands threw the door open to her stumbling over the carpet, snatching desperately to find the monitor which let out the quiet reassurance that his gentle breath still came and went in sleep. High above her the cruel ticking of the clock, and its hands caught her eye, proving how time dragged even in all consuming memories. She followed time for a moment, wondering why it bothered to drag and fly in whatever fashion would best tie her life in knots and leave her empty.

A moment, a flash- and rainwater dripping from her hair and clothing- her fingertips- as she stood lost in the stagnate anxiety of it all.

She unwrapped her frame from the drenched robe and let it fall into a spherical pile on the floor. A few steps to her right and she had pulled a blanket from the back of the couch to cover her as she sat and then lay, pulling her legs tightly to her chest in the same fashion she had slept. The rain soaked collared shirt clung to her, but she forgot it in her melancholy- her thoughts wandering.

Was this to be her eternity?
A moment passed before she found the weak courage within herself to purpose an answer. Without another thought she sat up quickly and stripped the damp shirt from her body and wrapped the blanket closer to her body. The shirt fell from her refusing hands and landed beside the pile of bathrobe she had left before. No.

Her palms pressed against the glass table at her knees, fingers fanning out over its clarity- releasing, and drawing out from the depths what slight hope remained in her weary soul. Rising from the couch, her toes curled gratefully into the worn carpet as she stood, collecting herself and wondering.

Enough, for now.

She bent to collect her wet clothing from the floor and moved to drop it into the sink. Then, never granting herself a chance to protest, her tired fingers pulled the newspaper clipping from the pallid refrigerator and tucked it away into a drawer.

Holding the patchwork blanket snugly around her frame, her other hand brushed over the cold-painted wall as she made her way back to gaze at her salvation as he slept.

Yes, enough.

ZOMG!!!!11111ONE! That was like, so the best story in the univerce! *faints dead away*

:bow:

Great chapter. Post more. It has great potential. I can't wait to see what happens next!




[/end example of what happens when no one posts a comment to my (Jewelz) fic and Celly leaves her computer logged on her screen name. Moo, ha ha...]

...hello? :cry:

I love your story! I really do! If I had time, I would cut and paste my entire review of it that I relayed to you, but I don't. :cry:

This story deserves more credit! *pokes people* You're missing out, you really are! [/actual post lol]

I just stumbled over this jewel and was immediatly cought by it.
The delicate descriptions, the small hints here and there.
The atmospere you paint.
They are truy amazing and leave me wanting for more.
Even though it sucks me into this hopeless and cold place you created here.
I want to know more.

Ah this is truly brilliant!!!

Thanks :)

Sadly, this is all there is. It's just sort of a snapshot of her life, an attempt to create a fictional situation that doesn't follow the usual trend of big changes occuring within the timeframe of the fic...

I don't know- I've been listening to alot of Iron and Wine and watching Winter Solstice *laughs*

Glad you liked it though :D

oh Jewelz, this was so extremely beautiful! I'm sincerely sorry I didn't find it sooner, but hey, better late than never, huh?

I would quote loads and loads, but I'd have to quote the entire thing, which is a bit much *laughs* I admire the perfection of your language in each and every sentence. it's all perfectly arranged and I know how much work that requires, yet seems as though it was just some stream of consciousness. perfect, really. I felt the emptiness, the pain and the longong, it was all there, tangible.

and finally, because I love quotes:

I know what it's like moving on after a terrible loss. it's such a long, painful and hard way to go, but I'm incredibly happy she realized her boyfriend would not want her to be unhappy. he's still with her in a way, in the baby. beautiful ending, with a bit of hope.

this was great, hon. I'm impressed.

:D Yay! Thank you for reading and replying and I'm so glad you like it! Silly thing took me about a year of writing it a couple paragraphs at a time, so *laughs* Yea, I'm just glad you like it :)

One little thing though- I know it's kind of confusing because there are no names in it, but- the baby was her sister's and the man who died in the car accident was her sister's boyfriend. She (the main character), just happened to be tragically in love with him. And, after he died, her sister took off (and left her kid).

So there that is.

...Heh, I don't know- I was going for the not-quite-what-you'd-expect-from-it-ness... Hmmm...

:love:

oh *lol* I must have overread that *laughs* but this little piece is still brilliant *hugs*

*grins*

I kind of figured that out from the story.
That is one of the many reasons why it is so sad.
But then again the whole atmosphere and the torment in the character shows this to.

Anyways yes I really did like it!

Hey there,

Finally got to read this, and it so beautiful. Very poetic and ethereal in a way, I love it. With it's delicate descriptions and beautiful imagery. Her emotions are very clear and so easy to sympathize with, so much that you feel the loss and the terrible emptiness it created in her life.
It was definitely a stunning read, thanks for sharing hon! *hugs*

Laila

No worries though :D

And Laila- Thanks so much for reading hun. I'm glad you liked it :)

Wow... I am converted. I must admit I have never been a fan of the long opening sentenses, with the exception of Gabriel Garcia Marquez when he makes a statement of it, because he is the master of opening lines, or in a humorous fashion like in the entries for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (they are the funniest ever, check out the 2006 winners at http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ ), but you have completely converted me. Usually I like opening lines to grab hold of me by force, but this was so delicate and poignant it just breathes in you. Something vaguely haiku like about it. It's evocative and poetic, yet so gentle and fragile. Upon about the third reading, 'flowing' seems a little weak. I always always fall into the trap of using too many adjectives, because I like them and they're pretty, but in all fact verbs are much more evocative in description, I have been told, for example if you say 'the sticky mud', that's not as evocative as 'the mud squelched'. Hemmingway pares back adjectives and goes for the evocative verbs. It's just an idea to play with, really.

I like the alliteration, I like the juxtaposition of the tangible and heavy lids, and the diaphanous curtains. I like 'the pushing of that wind'. Have you read Peter Carey's collection of shortstories, "the Fat Man in History"? There are similarities in your writing styles, and this story reminds me a little of 'She Wakes', a story within that. He's really excellent at using delicate, elegant kind of description combined with a very strong sense of voice, with very vivid extended metaphors. If you're looking to create a more severe impact on your reader, vivid metaphors with some smell and taste imagery thrown in there will usually do the trick.

I love this. Simple. Evocative. Linking the physical and emotional shells of her.

Okay, this makes me hungry. It's gorgeous, but, I want to know more, I want to smell the scent, I want to know what the fabric of the shirt does to her skin, whether it's a coarser heavier fabric than she's used to because it's a man's shirt, that it would hang differently because of that, where it reaches her on her body, does she fold the sleeves up, I want to know if it was heavy with his musk, or does she even find the memory of his scent distant and evasive as he seems to her now. I want to know how her tired frame moves, where was it tired, how can you tell? Now, was it your purpose to make me hungry for these things, to provoke me as a reader, to peak my curiousity? Because you damn well did.

I'm loving the creeping cold. But shivered again? I'm not a fan of the shiver word. What does it feel like to shiver.

Repetition of intended, emphasizing the sterility of the word. I like.

I like the belonging of worlds. I like the claustraphobia of the world. I think 'never see again' is a phrase stolen by melodrama, though Peter Skzynecki used it effectively in "Crossing the Red Sea".

Good decription of setting. Dah! No! 'placed'! my old enemy.

Curiouser and curiouser. I like the ambiguousness. Smoke partially obscures your second paragraph, as Italo Calvino would say. I like rearrange, illuding to some arranging of the past, perhaps the arranging of her, that she was once set into position like the room, and has not the heart to change herself when she's been formed by hands she has a presiding poignant sentiment for.

I adore the idea of the house left behind for the missing. I taste a remnant of some sweet psychosis.

I like 'uncurled herself'.

If her fingertips are brushing across the wall, the pale blue, the visual imagery, it doesn't quite click with the action. She's touching it and yet we don't know what it feels like, so the action loses meaning. One of my worst problems, using decription as an extension of the action and character. I like the aching feet.

I like 'that belonged to them'. That she is robbed of belonging, a caretaker. Very beautiful indeed. I adore beyond reason the violent wind.

To Be Continued, because you give me much to write about, your work excites me.

Ohdearohdearohdear!

Hannah, your analysis blows me away. So many people- most people- never dare/bother to tell both what they like and dislike in a work- to point out the weaknesses of it. Thank you so much for doing so! Though, I must admit that it makes me a bit defensive, I believe it is important to learn to take constructive criticism well, so thank you :)

My only problem is that I was considering submitting this to an Honors Program publication that is due the 16th! Only you have me pondering the changes that should be made in it, and wondering if I should hold off on attempting publication. It would be good to have being published behind my name, but then again there is always another time, another year to be published, after work has been further refined.

I'm so torn! I should be printing this all out today to make the deadline... only now...

What do you think, my dears: submit it now and let the chips fall where they may (leaving room for my own editing later), or save it for another publication, etc? There's always next year I suppose... *chews lip furiously* Eek! Advise me please! ....*laughs*

And now off to art class..

I'm turning into such a brutal and heartless critic these days, I am sorry. I never ever intended to unnerve you, or attack your work, and, protective as I am of my own work, I should have realised my fusspottisms in fiction are flawed and frightening.

You're writing is always completely divine, which is why I critique it in detail, because you are such a masterful imaginative writer, and the large painful quantity of editting writers go though to get published is usually aided by readers candid thoughts, even by seventeen year old psychopaths who are completely unworthy to read so much as your shopping list. However, my nitpicking is not to discredit the aforemensioned complete devinity of your work which is very worthy of publication. Your work is always evolving, and it always will be evolving, and what is good for you now will not be to you next year, so when ever you are published, it's like a snapshot of a tiny, changing part of your vast and magestic body of work. Frank Gehry said something about how, because it takes so long for a building to be constructed, by the time one of his works is actually done, he hates it, because he's evolved since he designed it, he thinks of all the things he might have done better. This is an excellent piece, but that is not to say it is the peak of your literary career. Each work you write shows you growing as a writer.

:blush:

Thanks :)

(And please don't feel bad for critiquing! I want to be nit-picked *laughs* because I want to evolve. You know though, how difficult it is to not keep picking at one's own work, constantly wanting to change it and make it better *laughs* Ah, to be a writer...*shakes head* Heh...)

(ps. I did end up submitting it; I'll let you all know what happens with that. Hopefully they won't mind it being here...hmmm...)