Ode to a Rainy Street

Milla Brown

The greying street held a plethora of people. All hurrying, all with places to be, all ignoring what was before them. With heads bent and umbrellas hovering above them, they moved with a careless abandon. Splashing water in their wake as they waded through the fast forming puddles.

The water was a disease. A contamination. Something not to be touched or endured for longer than necessary. It told them to run and do it quickly. It told them to get out of the horrid dampness before it was too late.

The street-goers didn’t stop to notice the small girl camouflaged in their wake. Whether they didn’t see her, or they didn’t care, they hurried past her solitary form. Not bothering a glance, or a shelter, or a word of advice. They would not be contaminated by the dampness in an attempt to save the stranded child.

And so she stood.

Her head was bent towards the ground with insufficient layers plastered to her small frame. Passers-by splashed watery contaminants as they hurried past her, drenching the girl with their inconsideration.

She didn’t look up.

The water caressed her face as she stood. It whispered to her the secrets of its ways as it cascaded down her back. It acknowledged her solitude in a way none of the passers-by ever could.

It played her a symphony of eternal movement. A story of its influence and the hurried panic it caused. On the ground at her feet, it showed her the complex patterns and whorls of time. Its ebb and flow mimicked time’s passage and transfixed her to the spot. She was a mesmerised victim, lulled into passive thought and quieted from movement.

And so she stood. And so they moved around her. 

And so she remained.

And so they did not.

Perhaps, they were too clouded by the mundane to see what she did. Or, perhaps they lacked the childish naivety to see the joy in the ordinary. To listen to the symphony of sound that surrounded the bustling street, and the crescendo the chaos of the water induced. But the song played for her, and her alone. It told its story to the one who would listen and condemned those that would not.

So there they left her, hurrying along to cleanse themselves of the sinful water. They did not want to hear its stories or listen to its songs. They did not want to endure its presence or feel its touch. They jostled her as they walked, ignoring the immovable statue of the girl; casting their gaze skyward to avoid the accountability of her fate.

The light dimmed as she stood. The water embedded into her clothes and hair and skin. Her damp eyelashes glistened in the reflected light of the surrounding street.

She lifted her head.

She cast her gaze to the street-goers surrounding her. She knew things now; things that they did not. She had watched them; observed their harried manner and felt the neglect of their presence. The water, the thing they were so determined not to touch for longer than necessary, had departed secrets to her. Secrets of the way of the world. It had shown her the flow of the beings that surrounded her and how it had entrapped them in a tight fist, a fist that they did not see but which lingered in the back of their minds.

And so she took a step.

Water sprayed in the wake of her footsteps, reaching its grasp towards the harried, and the busy, and the inconsiderate. A man stared down at her, anger etched into the lines of his face as the water seeped into his shoes and probed the fabric beneath.

He blinked. He stared down at the girl, then shifted his gaze to the water flowing beneath his feet. He removed the umbrella held resolutely above his head and lowered it to the small girl standing before him. She took it with a coy smile, skipping through the water with an adolescent bliss as she twirled the umbrella around and in front of her, above and below her; splashing and giggling as she went.

And so he stood.

Water caressed his face and plastered his thinning hair to his head. It soaked his clothes closer to his broad frame and trickled down his back as he gazed, mesmerised, at its rhythmic movement. It chastised him for his neglect and praised him for his willingness to break the spell of the ordinary that surrounded him. It sung in his ears as it trickled down the sides of hands with a tantalising touch.

And so he stood. 

And so she skipped. 

And so he remained. 

And so she did not.