He is waiting for his lover, his first love, which is why he treasures their relationship so much.
As he waits, he recalls the times they have shared together. Passersby step in puddles, splashing him, but he doesn't notice, instead thinking about his love.
He waits an hour, and becomes worried.
A car stops by the curb, in front of him. He doesn't realise it's her until she steps out of the car into the rain. He smiles, pleased to see her, forgetting she has just come in someone else's car.
"We can't be together," she says.
His smile fades, and he drops the umbrella.
He can no longer hear the rain hitting the ground around him, her words are silent movements of her mouth, her gestures uncomfortable and apologetic.
The only voice he hears is his own, saying, "This is the person I spent the happiest days of my life with. What happened to those times? Have they meant nothing all this while? Why is she telling me this? How can she be saying this to me"
His tears are drowned in the pouring rain, and he can hardly see. His eyes, so full of joy and anticipation a moment before, are bleak, anguished and shocked.
Her new lover, sitting impatiently in the car, honks and pretends to drive away, but stops two metres down the road.
The girl yells at him to wait, and he presses the horn of the flashy Ferrari once, hard.
She turns back and stares up at eyes filled with pain at her betrayal. She doesn't know what to say and looks down. Another sharp honk, makes her glance at the car, then at the face she once loved, before she turns away and walks quickly to the car.
As she opens the door, she calls to him, her voice cracking a little, "you'll find someone better than me."'
But it's not someone better than her he wants, it is her, he thinks, as the car speeds off even before she closes the door.
Left in the freezing rain, he collapses outside what was once their favourite cafe, drenched, cold, and dying each time he relives the moment when she cut him from her life.
He doesn't understand why she hurt him, or how his joy with her could be so complete he couldn't see this coming.
For a moment, he stares up at the purple-black sky in innocent amazement, wondering if rain is the the sky's tears.
Then he remembers her first words to him that night, and looks down again, at the rain splashing between and around his shoes, his face a white mask of hopelessness and grief.
Again he looks up at the sky, feeling the rain coming down on him, and he believes he could die of this pain that envelopes him so wholly he can see no way out of it..
:: b o o k s ::
:: films/plays ::