The Rain

I.

September afternoon. It was raining outside. Gerald “Jerry” Masterson sat alone in his private study. He was eagerly awaiting the return of his beloved children Jane and Charles back into his arms from a weekend of visiting their grandparents. His wife Sharon went to pick them up. While he sat there in his self-proclaimed fortress of solitude, he took a hazy glance outside. 

“Man, I hate the rain”, he uttered from his chapped, aged lips.

 The sight of the rain and the dark grey sky above instantly brought back memories from his war days. Yet, these were not happy memories or sad ones. They weren’t peaceful memories or tragic ones. No, these were the memories a man never talked about, the kind of memories a man could never forget even if he wanted to. They were some sort of dark, silent shadow that always lurked in the back of a man’s mind, waiting for the right or rather the wrong moment to unmask themselves once again. For Jerry Masterson, the feeling was nothing new, just a lingering reminder of the first time he ever learned to cherish each day.