B A N G | n a m j i n

R a i n E f f e c t

H i

This one's a tiny bit sad |

When I decided to take a pen and finally write those few words, about him, it was already too late. As they say, the train's passed.

Then again, it's better late than never, right? Because I could not stop my hand anyways. It was as if it's crumpled all those years and now it's finally released from its shackles, ready to do what it had to do long ago. What a great hand.

Truth is, Antoine De Saint-Exupery and The Little Prince truly inspired me, as I read the book for the nth time yesterday. I think I have aged a lot. I think I am becoming a grown-up, an adult. I don't want to, though. In fact, I am so against it that I finally took this pen.

My story itself is boring, but, what can I say, there are particular things, events, in your life that you can never forget and that mark you for ever.

It was raining. It was pouring really hard. I guess that settled the mood: melancholic, gray, quite. Not sad, no. I had always loved rain for its beauty, its dignity, its healing and soothing hand. Even if my story is sad, full of regrets, I still remember those times as the happiest of my life, and I'm still grateful for them. It has lasted for about a week.

A week... Now that I think about it, that seems quite short, right? But when I first saw him, as cliché as it might sound, time stopped.

Now now, I must clarify: this wasn't love, you know, the kind of cheesy romance everybody thinks about. Ha ha, let me laugh. I might be a silly boy but I'm persuaded it was way deeper, more real and true. No words were pronounced, no boundaries existed, with no kisses, in no time, we loved each other. We were soulmates or even more, we were one soul.

When I first met him, he was about to jump in front of a train. It was late at night, really late. I'd just came back from my ritual walk and my messy hair was dripping with rain, getting down all over my eyes. Without a word, instinctively, I ran in front of him and wrapped him in a hug. I barely managed to keep myself from falling down the platform and to the track, but I was stronger than he. His momentum was not enough to take us both down. His eyes were closed all the while: that's why he didn't stop himself from jumping, even if I was there. My gigantic self was taller than he was so I hugged him stronger and buried his face onto my chest, patting his head and back repeatedly. I still clearly remember his short breathing calming down against me, and God knows how much I felt proud.

I shivered when I felt the wind caused by the fast train pass through the thin fabric of my wet shirt. It was a merchandise one so it didn't even slow down while passing by us. Ugh. Then, when the night became quiet again, I let the sound of the drips hitting the floor lull us.

His hair was short, really. It was as if he shaved it not too long ago. I could tell because it was growing mischievously. Also, it was blond, I mean, unnaturally blond. He probably dyed it like that. I liked it, I liked his hair. But huh, you don't care about that, do you?

Would you care if I told you he didn't cry? Or that he didn't hug me back? Would you want to know that I felt really sad thinking of the possibility to lose him? I might have turned crazy that day but I felt like I found someone I might have been looking for all my life. It sure felt good, though.

When I finally stopped crying (yes I was), I pulled him to the side with me and we sat against a wall.

''Sorry,'' he simply said after a long silence. My head snapped towards him. Fists clenched, teeth gritted, I looked at him. In my head, I was screaming at him to shut up. He understood. You might not but he did. He knew why I was so angry at him for apologizing. I couldn't stand him feeling bad.

So, just like that, a week passed. It rained all days but it was beautiful. I stopped going to Uni, I stopped seeing anyone beside him. I don't know why, but I felt like my time with him was counted. We would always meet at the train station, early in the morning, and we would part ways there too, late at night. All the day, I would show him all my secret hangouts and the most beautiful places in town and we would have a lot of fun, while not talking much. Yes, we barely spoke, but he once told me he dreamt of going up a really big mountain to see the sunrise. He said he had seen a lot of sunsets in his life, but for once he wanted to see it rise. He wanted to see the day starting full of surprises and possibilities, instead of seeing it set, like a signature at the end of a contract.

The next day, then, I took him to the forest, and we climbed the small amount of rocks that were stacked somewhere near a gigantic tree. That was our big mountain, from where we saw the sunrise. That morning, it's surprisingly stopped raining and the sky was so clear, not even one cloud in the horizon. In front of us, there was a wide lowland, where the forest did not expand.

At four in the morning, from up there, he extended his arm and pointed up to the sun. ''It's you,'' he said. Then, he pointed behind him, to the west, and smiled: ''It's me.'' Why? Why would he be a sun setting? I wanted him to rise instead, to discover life and live it to the maximum. I wanted him to live. With me. Please. I wanted to cry, looking at his delicate complexion but I managed to nod at the sweet smile he was giving me.

I never saw him again.

I swear the next few weeks I became crazy. I would spend hours and hours at the train station, waiting for him to appear. When I wasn't there, I was wondering around town, visiting all the places we had been to together, while crying cold tears. It wasn't even raining and I didn't even know his name.

Finally, when I managed to find him, it was already too late for the funerals. Funny how I found him again as luckily and randomly as the first time we met. It was raining again that day, and I woke up in a hospital. A nurse said someone found me unconscious somewhere near a train station. She said I was exhausted and asked me why I haven't been eating for days. I shrugged, putted on my clothes and went out of the room. That when I saw him. He was looking straight at me, with his beautiful brown eyes. I walked (more like stumbled) toward him and stretched my hand to touch his face.

''You knew him?'' asked the nurse, who had followed me. I didn't answer, it wasn't necessary. ''He was a great guy, very quiet, really strong.'' She came closer to me and patted my shoulder. ''This picture of him isn't the best, right?'' She laughed a bit. ''You should pay him a visit, maybe bring him some flowers, huh? Something pink, he really liked that colour.'' She turned me toward her. ''And then, you could start eating, and taking care of yourself, so that he would be proud of you.'' She nodded three times as if she was convinced she said the most accurate statement in the world.

Turns out he had cancer, at terminal state nothing less. What a brat. I may have made him suffer for one more week, but... at least he has seen the sun rise, and as I'll try to become that bright star, a waking up sun, I'm sure that when I'll arrive at the end of my road, from the east to the west, I'll find him there, waiting for me where the sun lets it colors die and smiling that sweet smile of him. Then, I'll beat him up for apologizing to me, that night at the train station, when I should have been the one crawling in shame. And then I'll smile at him too because I would have missed him. A lot.

Meanwhile, I'll just enjoy the rain.