Raindrops of Sincerity - A Short Story

Raindrops of Sincerity - The One (and Only) Chapter

I shoved my fist at the car door furiously, fingers grasping for the handle. Once my shaking hand had gotten ahold of it, I jerked it towards me and shouldered the door open, my brain going a million miles an hour. Everything but my thoughts seemed to be moving in slow motion, almost like a grainy video with bad effects. I leapt onto the curb, shouting a multitude of curses at the guy in the driver’s seat, and then slammed the door shut, the bang echoing loudly. Before I could think of doing any more damage, however, the already battered BMW screeched away from the curb and shot down the street, leaving me alone. I was left breathing fast and hard, unable to think clearly. All I wanted to do was pummel something with my already scratched up fists, but something in my head yelled at me to stop. To pull myself together, even if I was already a shattered mess. I wanted to ignore it, really, really wanted to; I felt unable to control myself, and I knew I had finally snapped. I was a mound of pieces, of broken parts, of smashed fragments. I was unfixable.

"Calm down, calm down, calm down," I muttered to myself. Despite the dirty street trash lying around, I collapsed into a sitting position on the cement. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me and my messed up life. I didn’t know where to go, or what to do. I was lost, lost, lost, and I didn’t have a single sign to point me in the right direction. I pulled my head into my hands and rested them on my knees, trying to breathe deeply. It was dark, somewhere around two in the morning, but I didn’t care. I could hear the faint sizzling of the neon lights nearby, one of the many things in the city that never went out. Rocking back and forth, I tried to slow down my racing thoughts and think rationally. Once I could do that, I could get up and go. Go where? I  wasn't sure. I didn't know if I could go back home, if I could stand to go back home.

After I heard the unmistakable sound of a train whistle in the distance, I pulled my head up. Struggling to stand, I knew I had to get going. I didn't know where, but I had to get to somewhere. Everywhere in the world, people were going places, trains were slipping across tracks, cars were rumbling, life was going on, and I couldn’t stop anything. My bones felt like they would ache forever and my head pounded to the beat of my heart, but I resisted the urge to slump back down. I straightened up, dug my hands into my leather pockets, and started down the cracked sidewalk. Each step felt useless, an exertion that would never help me dig myself out of the hole I was drowning in, but I forced myself forward. Shadows cast by the signs and high walls around me turned the bustling street I was accustomed to into something dark and ominous. I had left the car in a burst of anger, spit out curses and profanity, but now I felt deflated and a bit scared. My anger was snuffed out like the flame of a candle; sparking and dancing one second, a simple trail of smoke the next.

I stopped walking just as a strange sensation bloomed in the pit of my stomach, and my eyes darted up. For a split second, I’d felt something was wrong. Nervously running my hand through my hair, I looked around, my body stiff with silent alertness. It was almost as if some thing, some feeling, had commanded me to stop; as strange as it was, I couldn’t pinpoint it to anything I’d felt before. As I slowly began to inch forward, I caught a glimpse of a shadow shoot into the alleyway ahead to my right. A curse escaped from my lips. Just like a horror movie, I thought, my eyes darting everywhere around me in the darkness. I’m going insane. Almost as if the heavens wanted to make the situation worse, it began to rain. Fast and aggressive drops, beating into my hair, sliding down my jacket. The sharp patter of rain against the concrete drowned out any noise of another creature nearby, which just made me more paranoid. Cursing again quietly, I took a deep, shaky breath and started walking again, not caring if I got wet. I wanted to get away from what I had seen; or perhaps thought I had seen. Either way, I was secretly frightened, despite the tough-guy cover I struggled to always keep up in front of me. Away went the outer shells of me, one by one, until the rain stripped away everything but myself. Until it was just me, just a human being, just a scared boy, just a troubled young man running through a city street in the rain, trying to get away from what frightened him.