What she really wanted to do was sit silently and listen to the rain. The air was thick and grey with mist and wet earth and somewhere downstairs there lingered smells from last night…cooked herring and the lavender candle lit and smoldering as an offset to the curling ocean smell.
The edges of the school year were beginning to curl and dry out…but the roots were still slightly damp and clinging. She wanted to rip the whole thing out and throw it on the compost. It was early morning still; the solitary indication that anyone was still alive in the neighborhood was the sound of one car, rising like a weighted vessel at sea…slowly around the corner, the gentle rocking sound of brakes sighing in the rain…full stop at the corner…a slight merging left as the car righted itself…the soft engine surging as the hill rose…large splashing and then the wide puddle by the mailbox lay breeched and drained…the slight squish of crunching gravel and tar…and gone…deafening silence.
The lights across the street flickered off…there was a burst of rain…a soaking sheet at the edge of the porch. Even the birds were quiet. Lovely.
‘Miss! Miss! You’re muted. I can’t hear you!’ She sighed. What she really, really wanted to do was to sit, immobile…watching the rain…’Miss! Now your camera is off’…the mourning dove cooed, a faint and wistful cry outside the window…the rain fell more heavily…’
690 Saint Paul 