Autumn Storms

1.
The rain is pouring so I put on a slick leather jacket and a hat because it’s almost November and rain should be cold when it’s almost November; it should be bitingly cold and bitter and the blowing raindrops should be shards of glass on my skin, but I chuckle as I slide my arms through the sleeves of the slick black leather because the air conditioner is on in my little house, the air conditioner is on, and outside my little window, the rain falls vertically, tropically, boring, and I know the jacket is irony, but I put it on anyway. I must be thinking of January. It gets like that here: the rain does, cold and bitter; in January it gets that cold, but at the end of October, summer hasn’t let go yet, and though the winter fights hard for supremacy, summer still holds an iron grip on the world, and even the rain stays warm in deference to its master. Maybe I’m thinking about Christmas, just two months away, thinking about the lights, and icy fingers hovering above a yuletide fire, and festively-colored (almost gaudy) sweaters that the old ladies wear at Christmas, and maybe I’m thinking about walking through a Trail of Lights, past a burning Yule log, through the throngs of festively-dressed, almost gaudy, old ladies, holding your hand. I’m not thinking about anything. I’m just putting on a slick leather jacket and a hat because it’s almost November and rain should be cold when it’s almost November.
2.
The rain is pouring so I cling tightly to my umbrella, tight as I can, and it doesn’t keep me dry at all because umbrellas are never as good as they seem, and because summer and winter and civilization conspire against me to make me wet and miserable; even though they are mortal adversaries, summer and winter and civilization, against me they will conspire together: the cold steams in billows when it hits the warm concrete so the humidity sticks to the roof of my mouth and sweat pours out from beneath my hat, dripping off my nose, and my back – beneath slick black leather – is sticky, a cold sweat sliding down the small of my back. With my free hand, I pull the coat tighter, smiling in satisfaction at the raindrops bouncing in vain against the black leather. A car rushes by, too close to the curb, and I knew this would happen, but I didn’t see it coming and I didn’t even know that I knew this would happen but it happens anyway and my legs – my socks and shoes and my jeans (up to my jacket) – are completely saturated by the splash of the passing car, so I look up in shock, in total appall at what’s been done to me, at what I knew would happen to me. I see the splashed water dripping from my leather jacket, rejected, and I smile. I laugh and shrug my shoulders and shake my head and feel glad that no one saw my moment of shocked shame, because I am a concrete Don Quixote, a proud and foolish knight, but I know it, and you are a windmill, and the rain just keeps pouring down, windless and boring, but for a moment, the breeze stirs cold and painful and I think of a little village in France somewhere where you wait for me, if you’re there, but then the breeze dies again and I sigh. I sigh. I sigh because I’m somehow both cold and hot and definitely soaked and yet I cling tightly to my umbrella, tight as I can.
3.
The rain is pouring because I can barely hear it in this classroom where the lecture drones on monotonously about information I don’t care about and ideas I’m too preoccupied to think about, but I can see the rain through the castle-slit windows of the classroom, falling in sheets, flowing across the glass, painting the whitewashed room in ever-shifting shades of grey and blue, and I can barely keep my eyes open and the class is small enough that the lecturer would notice my absence, and every time my eyelids touch, he looks crushed and part of me wants to tell him not to take it personally, but we both know I’m falling asleep because he’s just that boring, but I don’t want to say that to him so I try to ignore the distant pattering of rain and keep my eyes open. I wonder if it’s raining where you are and then I pause to question why I just now wondered that. A slick black leather jacket hangs from my chair, dripping, dripping, and everything is dripping from everybody so the classroom floor is slippery and the puddles under each wet student slowly merge into each other, seeming to dance in a bolt of lightning. Where are you today? The professor sighs abruptly and begins to pack up his papers, explaining that he can’t concentrate in this weather so everyone stomps out the door, and I sit watching the puddles reflecting grey and blue in the lightning, listening to distant pouring rain.
4.
The rain is pouring, but not where I am. The sun is setting behind me, but I don’t care about that. The storm is retreating before me, but it looks like it might be advancing. The clouds boil with lightning. I imagine they’re bombing the airport. Soundless as the vacuum of space, the battle rages on the horizon. I was in that battle hours ago. I was in that battle a moment ago. I was in that battle. The porch swing creaks nervously outside my little house, and the wind whispers through the trees and it’s still cloudy and grey, and I think this is not how I should feel after a storm has passed. A cloud lights up on the left. A streak of fire tears through fog on the right. A mockingbird on a branch above my head weeps. The clouds hang motionless on the horizon, but the silent battle moves into the distance, and the lightning flashes more and more infrequently, and I wonder why it still feels like the war is about to begin, because your car is still parked across the street where it’s been since you left, and nothing is new except that the rain is over and the gutters are clean, but the sky is still grey and cloudy. I want to run across the street. I want to knock on your door again. I want you to answer this time. A bolt of lightning traces a ragged rip in the sky, and it’s the last one, the last one I can see from where I am.