It is a Strange Rain by SC Alley

My mother refuses to believe me when I say that the rain is strange. She comes into my
room with some hot cinnamon milk, smiles at me sadly and tells me to drink, tells me that the
warmth of it will comfort me. She is my lovely, soft, squidgy nurse. But I know that the rain
has come to get me and I tell her so. It has come to wash me away. No amount of nursing can
prevent that. By way of reply, she gives me only silence.

I take the milk from her and continue to gaze out of the window as rain batters the ivy
growing up the front of the house that just encroaches on the sash. My mother turns to leave
me with the milk and the weather. I know she will tell the doctor about it. She will tell him
that I think the rain has changed again. She’ll ask him if I’m slowly getting worse. She doesn’t
understand. Rain changes. That’s what rain does. Sometimes it’s warm, soft and friendly
rain. It’s cleansing and makes me hopeful of a return to health. It leaves the world smelling
damp and earthy. It smells like its living. It makes me want to go outside and breathe it in, to
live in a vibrant, active, changing world. Then there is the cold, sharp, relentless rain that is
uncomfortable to be out in. The rain that hurts. The rain that is violent. I like the warm, soft
rain of summer best. That sort of rain won’t wash me away. It will replenish me. It will caress
me.

I long to go outside and smell all the different aromas that rain leaves behind. But I won’t
because I don’t want to disappear or dissolve. There is already so little of me left and rain
strikes me as a slow death. I’d rather it were quick.

Suddenly the doctor enters my room and sits on the edge of my bed. “Hello Sarah. How are
you, today?” He gives me one of his “never mind” smiles. He gives me a lot of those. I choose
not to return it. I choose not to return any of them.

“Is this constant rain getting you down?” he asks me. “There’s been a lot of it lately. I often
find it depressing, myself. Soon be spring, though.”

I sigh. Do I really have to explain it all again? “The rain is different now,” I say at length. “It’s
greyer and at more of an angle. It’s driving with purpose. More than before. It has come to
wash me away.”

Now it’s the doctors turn to sign. “No, Sarah. Nothing has come to wash you away.”

“But the rain has changed. It’s strange now. It has a... quality.”

“Can you describe this ‘quality’?”

“On no,” I tell him as patiently as I can. “To give words to the quality gives it more power. It is
a nameless quality. But it wants to wash me away all the same. It already has so much
power. Can’t you see?”

The doctor shakes his head and gives me “never mind”.

“You are clearly more observant than me,” he says.

But how can he not see the strange rain? He is, after all, a doctor. If he cannot save me, I am
lost and the rain may as well have taken me already. The fear of it catches in my throat and
waters my eyes. I am lost. I am lost. Perhaps I should gather all my strength and try to go out
into the garden. Perhaps I should give myself to the rain and get it over with.

“Let me talk to you mother,” he says. He rises and leaves. I watch as the mattress tries to
correct itself after his weight has been removed. He has left the impression of his buttocks
on my duvet and it strikes me as a horrible intimacy to have left me with. I turn back to the
rain.

We are at the airport now. I watch people bustling past as I am wheeled towards the array of
check-in desks. I can hear the wet rustling of anoraks and the slapping of wet feet as holiday-
makers search eagerly for their correct queues. They have battled with the rain to get here
and soon they will have escaped it. They will be free. Some of them actually wear flip-flops. I
came here through the rain, too. It smelt of car exhausts and engine oil on the wet tarmac
outside. Unclean. A little bit more of me will have been washed away. A little of my essence
will now be trickling down the drains. I try not to think about it.

Once we get to the departure lounge, my mother pulls back my hood and tries to comb at my
hair with her wet fingers. I slap her away. The strange rain doesn’t care about messy hair. It
takes pride in the way it dishevels people. That’s one of its jobs.

From the departure lounge, I watch the rain lashing down onto the runway. There is no
escape. Not until our flight is called. I wonder if the rain knows that I am escaping. “A
holiday will be good for you,” the doctor had told me. “No more rain for a while. Can you
imagine? How wonderful!” Yes, I think. How wonderful. But the rain will only wait until I
return. Then it will continue to dilute me, to wash away any remaining strength. A holiday
just presses the ‘pause’ button.

We are in northern Corsica now. The views are astonishing. They make me giddy as we
weave our way up the mountains to the hotel. I don’t like being so close to the precipice as
we turn each bend in the road. Occasionally, I see little rivers of water escaping down the
cracks in the rock face. Rivers made by strange rain. So, it might still find me here. The
crushing humidity tells me that it isn’t far away. It is overhead, in the clouds, seeking me out.
A sudden flash of lightening, up and to my left, confirms as much.

When we finally make the climb, we are greeted with courtesy by the hotelier. I like his
watery smile. “You have had a good journey, yes?” I wonder what he’d say if I told him “no”.
He heaves our two suitcases towards the lift, chatting as we go.

“You bring the rain with you, no?” He watches my face fall. “Oh, Mademoiselle! I joke, I joke.
We always have storms in the mountain. Storms and the sun. Always the sun. You will enjoy
it very much.” He shows not a hint of a “never mind” smile.

I try to smile back at him. I try to make it my best smile but I am out of practice. He nods at
me, as though he recognises the effort I am trying to make. My mother smiles at him with her
mouth only. I hope that my own smile found my eyes.

Our room, when we get there, is hot and bright with big shutters open wide in the window.
The view is huge. It almost reaches into the room and pulls me out to dash me on the crags
below. I reverse my wheelchair to the furthest wall. If I have to choose, then I choose the
strange rain. I would rather be washed away than dashed. I think that the rain has more
power here in the mountains.

My mother is keen to explore the hotel. After unpacking, we descend again, to the little
Corsican garden. It almost looks tropical. Alien plants thriving in the strange rain. There is
no escape. I am lost. I am lost.

My mother, with book and towel under one arm, gingerly tests her weight in one of the sun
loungers dotted about the garden. She still has her tights and shoes on. I can hear splashing
and laughter beyond a hedge nearby. A swimming pool tainted periodically by strange rain. I
will not go in the pool.

Suddenly, the sun bursts through a cloud, hot and slicing down onto my legs. It feels
warming. Comforting. Perhaps I will be safe from the rain after all. Perhaps I won’t be
washed away. The doctor, for once, may have been right. A holiday will be good for me.

I am enjoying my holiday. The doctor will be pleased. I have already read one and a half
books. My mother no longer wears her shoes and tights. Her legs are naked and she wears
an ugly pair of flip-flops. She has painted her toenails to make herself feel young. She has
painted mine too. I am twenty-five years old and have never worn nail polish. I don’t like it
because it looks like my toes are bleeding. Perhaps some rain will come to wash it off but
there has been no rain for three days now. Not since the thunderstorm on our first evening
here. I am safe from the rain for a while. It will not wash me away while I am here. There is
only the sun.

The sun seems to be a constant. Warming and comforting. Healing at first. I would sit and
imagine myself healing, bathed in its generous glow. But that has changed, this second week.
The sun is burning me now. I am being baked. I am being slowly disintegrated. I am
crumbling to dust. There is already so little of me left. I have told my mother that it is a
strange sun. She just sits and changes the colour of her toes.

© SC Lambert

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Prompt #2 Jan 10th 2011

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