An Innocent Rain And a Lonely Woman

Every rainy night, my neighbor would pummel and throw his wife around like a worthless object.

Her voice will screech to the roof. Her tears will flood the floor of their living room. And the vapors from her pains will permeate the neighborhood, but the innocent rain will drown it all into silence. She would squeal and plead for help, but no one would hear. And no one would come to rescue her from a bully of a husband.

And when morning comes, her broken face would tell a fresh tale of her heart-wrenching life. And her bloodshot eyes will reveal the terrible depth of her sufferings. She’d be seen walking around looking forlorn and speaking to no one.

Then one night, it rained cats and dogs, but my neighbor wasn’t home. He arrived in our neighborhood inebriated as usual with a soiled mind and wobbling feet. He could neither control his thoughts nor see clearly.

He staggered into the first door along the corridor that was left ajar and pounced on a woman that lay on the couch. The woman, same as his hapless wife screeched with pain as he began to punch her repeatedly. Her husband appeared from the other room to beheld a man laying hands on his wife. He threw my neighbor down, tore his clothes to shreds, and broke his body.

My neighbor wailed like his victims and pleaded to be spared. But no one came to his aid. The heavy downpour swallowed the crying voice of the pitiless bully. All we could hear was the same thumping sound of the rain. It was from the arrival of the police and ambulance that we got wind of our neighbor’s deserved ordeal.

He returned to his home after a few days looking pitifully different. His bandaged face and his broken arm gave him the look of an accident victim. He tried to conceal his missing teeth by speaking less and staying mostly indoors. During this period, his wife who now looks cheerful and oddly happier gradually recuperates from her many wounds.

She ceased to appear in the morning with a bloodshot eye that would tell tales of the latest assault. She stopped coating her lips every morning with lipstick to cover her swollen lips. We began to have some hope of a new beginning for a man that was losing it and for an innocent woman that often gets treated awfully.

And then last night, there was no sign of rain. The weather was bright and warm. We all sat on our balconies facing each other as we chatted and laughed over various jokes. Suddenly our happy moment was disrupted by screams for help. We stared at each other in horror, rose quickly, and rammed into our neighbor’s door.

And there he was. His back on the ground and his hands on his sides like a discomfited warrior. Blood trickled down from his upper body. His feeble feet shaking and kicking uncontrollably; his empty eyes descending into his skull, and his lips struggling to form a word.

His wife stood by his side with arms akimbo, and a nondescript face. Even as people trooped into their living room, his wife remained rigid like a statue, staring at what might be the end of her painful life and the beginning of another.

Suddenly their sitting room turned to a theater of tears. Expletives were poured on the unconscious man and his damaged wife.

While some neighbors work their socks off to stop the bleeding. Others gathered talking in different tones and praying that the ambulance would arrive quickly.

As we eagerly awaited the arrival of the ambulance, I turned my gaze on his wife. There were fresh bruises under her left eye. There were also some visible reddish scratches on her right cheek and a deep cut on her forehead. Each telling yet a new tale of her pathetic life.

We were going to see all that when morning comes if the browbeater hadn’t turned into a pitiable victim.