When the Rain Stops

The First Drizzle

༻ him ༺

His dad needed a liver transplant. But he didn't have the money.

Shifting his feet, the boy stared at the door, contemplating whether or not to go in, his skin crawling. It wasn't as if visiting him will make much of a difference.

The sharp smells of antiseptics and disinfectants that the whole building was soaked in burned his nose hairs, but nobody seemed to mind.

The bright lights in the corridor dimmed through the big, dark lenses sitting atop the bridge of his nose, and the gleaming marbled floor glared up at him, as if daring him to take off his glasses. It's hazardous here for his delicate eyes, but once again, everyone else paid no attention to the fierce lights.

He was divided from the world with the two glass plates on his face, feeling and thinking separate thoughts. The boy felt as if he was invisible, his mind pulled from this body and the surrounding inhabitants, an observer behind glass walls.

He took a deep breath, peeked through the window and let out a small puff of air when he saw that his dad was laying peacefully on the bed, relief washing through his veins. Maybe today was one of his good days, and he wouldn't be pressured to sneak in alcohol— but no.

Upon closer inspection, he was actually asleep. The boy couldn't decide if this was better or worse. Opening the door quietly, he dropped off the fruit he'd brought in a basket he'd woven himself. As the boy made to leave, he paused and turned back to study his father's face.

Deep lines ran through his waxy skin, angry grooves gracing his brows and the area around his frowning mouth. With his thick eyebrows drawn into an ugly dip, he looked unforgiving even in sleep.

But never as scary as he was when he got drunk.

Walking back the way he came, the boy pulled down his hood with a hand tucked in the pocket of his hoodie, shoving the tinted lenses of his glasses up his nose tiredly. He should probably get the legs of the frame tightened sometime.

Stepping to the door, he took a deep breath and got ready to greet the sunlight. Just as he pulled the door open, someone crashed into him, knocking his glasses off his face. They skittered a couple feet away on the blurry tiles.

"Hey, look where you're going!"

"Sorry," he muttered as the old man shoved past him, smelling of familiar cigarette smoke.

Without the frame of the man blocking the sun's rays, they stabbed his sensitive eyes painfully like pins in a sudden block of light. He immediately turned, holding his hands over his face, blinking his watering eyes rapidly.

The smell of clean skin and a faint flowery fragrance dusted the air around him, covering the sharp pungent smells that was distinctly hospital for a mere second.

A pair of trim hands offered him his glasses, and he lifted them from the palms of the stranger. "Thank you." His voice was quiet and timid, and he hated it, hated the way the sound of it stuck to the insides of his ear canals, like the sugary, spun strings of gold, glassy maltose that clung to his fingers.

"Just look at the signs next time. The exit door is one over." As quickly as the stranger came, away she went, quick as the winds and the spring showers.

People were often like that, like the short-lived breezes and the drizzles of rain just lightly passing by; brief, forgettable, because there'll always be a replacement.

But sometimes, there is a howling, thunderous rainstorm that remakes everything in its path— and that, is something he'll never forget.

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