Standing In the Rain

You are outside in the rain, standing beneath a street lamp wearing a trench coat. The year is 1941. War rages on in another country. You are a woman. You light a cigarette. You are alone. The streets are painted with shadows. You drag heavily on the cigarette. You can feel the cancer entering your lungs — the cancer of being alone. You dread the thought that one day, he will not return. That one day, you will truly be alone. Or worse. You will know it. At least for the moment, you can feel the heat of the cigarette. You can feel what you do to yourself. Then, in that moment, the rain suddenly stops. The street light flickers, making an electric sound — the most electricity in your life for a long while. You toss the cancer to the concrete — you’ve puffed the last ring of smoke. The remaining light extinguishes. There is pitch darkness, but at least its on pitch. You take off your coat. It drops to the floor and you are naked.

Naked and alone, without any stimulants. Just the cold air and the lingering warmth of that cigarette. You turn around on time with the music in your mind. Suddenly, you are not alone. You are accompanied by the instruments of a hundred others. You step out into the street. Under the light of the moon, you dance around the painted shadows. Avoiding the loneliness —forgetting it. Allowing the moment to take over your soul while the war rages on in another country. Your husband fighting for his life in a muddy ditch somewhere else. Somewhere you cannot bare to imagine. You tell yourself that he cannot imagine your pain. And you are right. You compare your hardships as you dance in the rain. Naked — avoiding the painted shadows. You look up at the night sky and your husband looks up too. A raindrop lands on his cheek. Gunfire. Your husband looks down at his palms. At a picture of you that he buries deep inside his trench coat.

You look down at your bare feet. No photograph. But no one is the wiser. You continue to dance. Your husband too. You can only hope to have shared this moment. Hope, but never know for sure. Gunfire. This time, you feel it. You stop dancing. Headlights. A vehicle. You escape its raging horn and stand below the street lamp once again. You pick up the trench coat from the wet ground and put it on. You slide your hand into the pocket and give yourself a moment. Then, you take something out. A photograph. The street lamp flickers on. Gunfire. You look at the photograph and it begins to rain. It’s you in the picture.

You are standing in the pouring rain, beneath a street lamp wearing your husband’s jacket. The year is 1942. You light a cigarette, step in front of traffic. A horn rages. There is no escape. And then, darkness — on pitch.