The gray clouds cast eerie, misshaped shadows around the room as the pouring rain falls endlessly with the fierce sound of drumbeats.

   The television sparks as it shuts off and thunder clapped with the intensity of a bomb.  I jumped from my chair expecting to see a scene of total devastation through the window.

   I wipe the wet fog from the glass and watch as the rain beats down; the raindrops dance with the fury of fire in the street washing away everything in its path.

   I stare at a truck, its headlights barely visible, slowly making its way down the river that fills the neighborhood street.

   It has been raining for so long I had almost forgotten what the Sun looks like and although it’s a summer day the icy downpour bites and chills to the bone.

   I fold my arms and lean against the wet easement to watch Nature’s destructive beauty.

   In the dreariness of days like this I fight to find solitude and reflection.  It’s ironic that so often moments of clarity occur on the darkest of days.  I guess that proves that the light is out there if one is willing to take the time to find it.

   Alone with my thoughts I sift through my memories and relive both the happy and the sad times of my life.

   I think of those I haven’t seen in hours, those I haven’t seen in years, and even those I will never see again.

   Trying to break the sombre mood I begin drawing pictures in the fog-covered window.  I laugh to myself as I draw smiley faces and a cat.  I draw a cartoonish car and grin proudly at my creation.

   With a bored finger I absent-mindedly write a simple word.

   Honk.

    I laugh out loud as I imagine the sound of a tiny car horn beeping.  The images on the glass begin to stretch and fade from view like the memories cycling through my mind.

   As the word begins to slip from view I looked at it and stood transfixed as a wave of emotion and memory came back with the ferocity of the rain outside.

   Suddenly I’m seventeen again.  It was the summer before my senior year and we laughed the days away with concerts and joy rides.  The haze of summer gave the effect of being in a sauna as other concert goers partied and goofed off in the parking lot where empty cups, trash, and beer cans littered the ground.  We crammed into Jason’s Camaro and headed out of Pine Knob and slowly made our way back to I-75.

   I cranked up the radio and the engine roared to life once it entered the highway.  The sky crackled and we let out a roar of laughter as a cooling summer shower came down through the open top of the car.

   Twilight fell and Jason flicked on the headlights as we rocketed down the highway, laughing and ignorant in our youth.

   The sound of tires screeching came without warning.  The sight of headlights and the smell of burning rubber appeared before us…

 

….

 

   I write your name on the window and watch as the water drips through the letters like slow teardrops, washing it away.          

   I damn the rain; and watch as the water wipes clear the window.    

   I slowly back away, pull back the covers and sigh as I lay down.  A tear rolls down my face, much like the windowpane.

   I fall asleep to the sound of endless rain.

 

  If only it could wash clear my memory with such ease.    

 

From “Under a Sunlit Sky”  © 2010 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions

For ordering information please visit the bookstore at : http://bookstore.deepforestproductions.com/underasunlitsky.htm

An earlier version of this was printed in the Mused Literary Review Vol. 2 Issue 3