The Whisper In The Chasm

prologue

In Astoria once it starts raining it seems unending. Once it touches the ground everything is quickly soaked in town, everything that rests on the towns earth: bird nests, lost clothing, drawings left out, the water sweeps it away, rotting everything in its path. And if there was anything else similar to that I have yet to see it.
But when I was a boy of only nine, stumbling through my first months in the town where I was the more alone then i have ever been before, where my teachers babbled nonsensical words at me and my parents minds grew knottier by the day, I didn't understand i should have appreciated such loveliness with my heart, because there were bound to be worse. I felt homesick, for the place I use to call home where the sky was brighter, and we were happier. I prefer a good crisis to a dependable case of cabin fever. But in any case I spend much of the days outside
Everyday I had to walk through puddles to catch the bus, back then we wore rain boots and rain coats. The icy water would seep through my shirt and pants and I'd be bone cold till lunch time.
One say, it must have been Saturday or Sunday, I went out to play in the rain, watching as the water splash as I ran around, jumping in puddles. I sang a song learned in class, I didn't understand it till now but it was sweet and melodic. As I stoped the singing all around me was as silent, imagined i must have enjoyed how clear and alone my voice sounded.
Down the road lived another boy, Rudi, who went to my school, he had an older sister Veronica who went to highschool. I often spent time outside with him in the afternoon, biding the last of daylight in the quite of peace and nature, away for our rented home. He must have seen me one day as he asked if I wanted to explore more, I told him I would even though it was forbidden and dangerous and is get lost. But it sounded wonderfully exciting. He told me his sister and couldn't go, but that he would take me if I liked. And so i ignored my parents warning, and i went with him. He fetched some stuff before we went- and we walked through the field to the church yard. Fist we passed the statue of the church, and then there was an old graveyard, and downhill from it, an empty lawn covered in water. The hill was quite steep in some places others not so much, but it was very long with stairs on half of the sidewalk. I was scared to walk down it as it was my first time being that far from home, so Rudi held my small hand on the way down. It was thrilling, the chilling wind on my face and filled my lungs and we walked down.
I felt like I could do anything with Rudi there. It sounds silly to say it, but sometimes, when it was time to go home after visiting him, i felt like clinging to his leg like a toddler and burying my face into his waist, and begging him, please don't make me go back there. I tell you he much have thought I was the peskiest child. God knows why he tolerated me. That day when we went home after exploring I remember it being warm.
It wasn't my house but his, i hadn't been past the mudroom before, but today he brought me to the kitchen and sat me down. It was a modern kitchen with cookie cutters hung up. He said, your pants are wet take them off, and so i did, he helped my pull them off around my ankle when they twisted up, then sat on the floor before me and rubbed my feet and toes to warm them, your feet are like ice, he said. After he took my pants and put them in front of a heater and gave me a cookie to eat. Tasting of cinnamon and chocolate.
Thats all i remember about it. After my pants dried I put them on and went home i suppose.