It isn’t just water. It’s rain, and that’s different. Water is the stuff inside of a stream or a lake or an ocean. Water is the stuff that comes out of a pump or out of a tap when we turn it on. But this stuff--the stuff that comes down from the heavens--it isn’t just water. This is rain.
And rain hides the sun.
It blots the sun out of the sky and makes it seem as though it never
existed. It was just a dream you
had. It wasn’t real because there is no
sun. There’s only rain. It brings the gray and usually the cold as
well. It bites at your skin, and the
wind creates tiny shivers in your body.
Then you hunch your shoulders and bow your head and think of the dream.
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| It isn't just water. It's rain. |
The rain lashes at your head and your face. It blinds your eyes and drenches your
body. No matter how much rain gear you
have, a torrential downpour will soak you as if you had jumped into a
river. The wind finds every seam and
closure on your clothes, and it drives the rain and cold inside. Deep, frozen hands reach inside and say, “Mine!” And you hunch and shiver and think of the
dream.
Finally the seams will give way, and the rain seeps into
your mind. Your thoughts become damp at
first and then completely wet. The gray
tendrils reach inside and cover every memory with a veil. The dream stays behind the veil, and you can
only see shadows of it moving now and then beyond the curtain. The abyss is deep. No one crosses through and comes back alive,
so you must wait for the rain to abate.
Creep back, then, to your house and hide yourself from the
rain. We know how to weather the
storm. Light a candle even if you flick
every light in the house on. Light a
candle and keep it in your line of vision.
The glow is subtle at first, but it will grow. The old dream is stirring inside of you, and
the candle warms and coaxes it out again.
And now you are warm once more because like attracts like. The dream of the sun returns full force, and
nothing can blot it out. You are still
you.
Outside the rain continues, but now it is just water. The world is washed clean once again, and
everything will be renewed. The grayness
and the cold and the shivering have slipped away, locked beyond impenetrable
windows. They must have been a
dream. You won’t think of them
again. Until you do.
