The Devil's Rain

The Devil’s Rain 

By Benny Shaw 

For 21 years I had a normal life, I guess. I mean, my childhood was filled with scraped knees, and bruised emotions brought on when my youthful wonder brushed up against mature realities.  

From there, a straight line to acne, hormone changes, and awkwardness with girls. You know, normal. 

The same mundane motif of the underwhelming, A.K.A, my life, shifted into struggling to pay my bills, trapped in a nowhere job having, no girlfriend having, adulting. And that is where it stayed until about month ago when a strange purple haze overtook the skies, dropping a frothy, warm, rain, down on my head.  

Now, you can focus on the obvious things that are already strange in this tale, the color of the sky, or the warm frothy liquid that made up the rain. But then, there was the fact that I was the only one that seemed odd occurrence.  

Let me explain. I was five miles from town when my old beater with a not-so-good heater broke down on a very tempered climate day. 

Maybe I should not say broke down, when telling this story. Because my car didn’t break down, though it was long overdue to clunk-out. Instead, it just stopped. When I mean stopped, I mean the engine cut off and the car just stopped. No squealing tires or being jerked forward. Stopped. 

The moment I exited the car to investigate the strange phenomenon, the purple sky jumped out of nowhere and the frothing began. I tried to get back inside the jalopy, and the electric doors locks engaged themself.  

So, there I was standing outside my worthless piece of junk, which, at that time, was only good for keeping me out of the rain, and some maleficent force in the universe was preventing the piece of shit from fulfilling it only plausible purpose, at that time.  

In seconds, I was soaked to my bones. Then, as if things could not get any more curious, the rain’s warmth began to feel as if it were first, crawling over my skin. Then I felt it burrow into it. It was in no way uncomfortable. On the contrary, it felt amazing. I felt life.  

The warm sensation began to put me in trance like state. I could no longer distinguish where I ended, and the rain began.  

A click, and the rain stopped. I tried my door once again, and it opened. In that instant, if that car was a lemon, being able to sit inside it again, and it starting up, was lemonade. I was sure my life was returning to its same cloying routine, which was fine with me, without the warm, skin-crawling rain, and ominous, purple-bruised sky.    

I was sure for the entire 15-feet it took me to travel before I realized the ground ahead of me was dry. “Impossible,” I said aloud. Then it dawned on me, was it less possible than my car stopping, locking, and starting itself, as if it had a mind of its own?  

Yet, as I continued to travel the parched road, following the crisps sun, as it baked the concrete surroundings of the city. All the way to my studio apartment, I looked in awe, not a wet head in sight. 

That was until I got out of the car and saw Nacy, my neighbor form 1B, directly underneath my apartment. “The water was pretty warm,” she says, wearing a slim, damp, sweat suit, while drying her blonde hair, and look at my wet kinking hair.  

“So,” I could not control my excitement. “You felt it also?”  

“Sure did. And it felt amazing.”  

“I was beginning to think I had gone mad, and I was the only one who experienced it.” 

“No, sir-re, I felt it,” she comforted me even more. “Strange, though,” she stopped mopping her hair with the towel, and a sea of blue peered at me from underneath her lowered, thick, and busy, brow. “I don’t remember seeing you there.”  

“I was there,” I pleaded for her to believe me, not wanting to return to being alone in my experience. “I was there. On Henson Rd. Right in front of the old oak tree. Just before Devil’s Dip.”  

Her eyes shifted back and forth, as if she was looking into mine trying to determine if I was on drugs, had been drinking, or just plain lost my damn mind.  

She sniffed the air, then frowned, not a full-face contorted frown. But a more subtle attempt at keeping her frown slight enough, I might not notice it. “Are you okay, Melvin?” she asked.  

“Yes, I’m fine,” I snapped at her. “Why do you ask?” I begin to feel my face.  

“Because I was talking about the swimming pool.” 

“The swimming pool,” I said with aggressive shock.  

“Yes,” she said as she took a step back from me. “They finally fixed the heat pump.”  

I could feel the brokenness expressed in my look, and he just scampered away leaving me alone with my experience, once again.  

That evening, before the sun had gone down, I planted myself face first into the couch, not even bothering to let the bed part out, and there I laid till the next morning when I woke with an insatiable desire to gossip. What does that feel like? It feels like your starving brain is connected to an uneasy quiver in your stomach, while a tiny voice in the back of your head searches for something about someone, while wanting to find anyone to tell it.  

With everything swirling around in my head, a vision unfolded. A vision where Nacy, was taking a shower, while Mr. Park’s, inside the complex manager’s office, watched the camera he had hidden in her bathroom.  

The phone rang, breaking my dreamscape. I peered down to see my mother was calling me.  

“Hello, Mother,” I said, rather dryly.  

“Wow,” she exclaimed in her over reactive tone she uses to make me feel like shit about almost anything I say or do. “Is this all the enthusiasm you can muster for the woman who nearly died giving you birth?”   

“Sorry,” I tried my best to sound genuine. “Just got a lot on my mind this morning.”  

“Tell me about it,” she said, and compelled by the quiver in my stomach, I began to tell her.  

“Well,” I started, sounding like a housewife preparing to talk about soap operas with her friends. “Nacy,” I continued.  

“Uh-huh,” mother replied, and it made me want to tell her even more.  

“She went to the swimming pool,” I diverted to give her context. “After years, they just fixed the heat pump in it.”  

“You don’t say?”  

“I think it has to do with new management. The old ones were too cheap to fix anything.” 

“Slumlords,” my mother said with disgust in her voice.  

Before I knew it, the one phrase that every Chatty Patty in the universe must utter fell out. “Girlll, you got that right.”  

“But go on.” My mother insisted.  

“Now here is the juicy part,” I said, then leaned down with the phone. I mean, as if I could have gotten closer to her ear by doing so. “Mr. Park, the new complex manager...”  

“Oh, he sounds like a devil,” my mother rhythmically interjected.  

‘Girlll,” I was, once again, compelled to say. “She went home to take a shower, and he had a damn camera hidden in her bathroom, watching her.”  

“Oh,” my mother hollered like she was hit. “That son-of-bitch.”  

A knock at the door captured my attention. “Someone is at the door,” I tell my mother.  

“Okay,” she says perkier than I have ever heard her after one of our conversations. “But son,” she stops me as I’m about to push end.  

“Yes mother?”  

“I love you.” The L-word hit me like an F-bomb in church, and I could not believe all it took to get my mother to say she loved me was to lie to her as if a vision I had really happened. 

“You won’t believe what happened,” screamed my next-door neighbor, Filex, as I opened the door, still trying to adjust to the easing of the uneasiness in my stomach being replaced with a pressing uncomfortable hangover from having lied so easily. He sniffed the air, “what is that funny smell?” he asked.  

“What happened?” I asked as the desire for more gossip peeked its head again.  

“You know Mr. Parks,” he says, like a professional gossip starting a yarn.  

“The complex manager?” Somehow, I knew that was the right response, even though it began to make me feel eerie DeJa Vu.   

“Mm-hmm,” she said, his long face nodding up and down.  

“Go ahead,” I said, with pitching excitement in my voice, resisting the urge to call him girlll.  

“His wife walked in and caught him looking at video.”  

The excitement for gossip could not stand up to overwrought that began to swim deep down into my spirit. “Now,” Felix leaned in, “guess what he was looking at?”  

“Nacy, naked, in the shower,” spilled out of my mouth, emotionless, and tiresome.   

“Somebody already told you?” Felix spoke, drained of his excitement like the exposed punchline of a joke.  

“I got some things I need to do,” I said, deflated.  

“But, how did you know?” Felix asked, looking confused. “I was in the office when it happened?” He continued as I gently took his thin arm. “Can you be?” he shook his head, and his mop-top-perm shook profusely. “Are you a physic?” was his last question as I gently shut the door and leaned against it.  

“I don’t know,” I said to myself aloud. “Am I a physic?” But then, there was something to add to the growing list of somethings about this feeling that led me to believe it might not have been a premonition of an event, as much as it was the catalyst causing this event to happen. 

Another knock at the door. “I’m tired of gossiping, Felix,” I said through the door.  

I felt an energy, like a surge of static electricity, infect my space. I saw the front door shake first, then shimmy, then disappear. A cleverly dressed man was on the other side. He wore a purple pinstripe suit and overcoat, with matching hat. He leaned on a cane with a huge purple diamond on the top of it. A purple that I had only seen once before.  

The door reappeared, and this time he was standing inside of it. I jumped as he took off his hat.  

“Good morning, my dear sir,” he said. His voice was metallic, rough and penetrating, nothing I would want to read a book to kids.  

“What the fuck are you doing in my apartment?” was the first thing I could think of asking as I pushed down the desire to gossip with him. 

He sniffed the air. “You felt it.” He stated more than he asked. Then rested his hat, cane, and coat.  

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I answered apprehensively, afraid I was going to end up in another swimming pool conversation. “Now, put your things back on, I never invited you to stay.”  

His skin was dark, darker than mine. His hair was nappy. Not unkempt nappy, but a well cultivated nappy look. I had worn my hair low for so long, yet, seeing his style made me wonder how it would look on me.  

“Your correct,” he said as he moved to take a seat on the couch. “You didn't invite me to stay.” He paused before sitting down. “But you’ll need me to stay,” he took a seat, and I smelled a hit sulfur.  

“Look, I just need you out of my apartment, before I call the cops.”  

“Hey,” he said, and pushed his hands in front of me, showing he was not threatening me. “Let me introduce myself,” he continued, as I picked up my phone and began working my pattern to unlock it. The first time it did not work.  

“My name is Lou Si Furr,” he said, then paused.  

“Lucifer?” I said and stopped trying. 

“On in the same,” he said, and spread his arms for me to take in his magnificence.  

“Why in the devil would you be here?” I said, pun intended.  

He leaned back, rather disappointed I was not more amazed than I was. The day before, he might have gotten the raise he expected and deserved. However, by now I have experienced too much strange shit to be surprised by the Devil sitting on my couch.  

“It seems you may have had a run in with a pet of mine.”  

“Sorry,” I said, confused, “I haven’t had a run in with any animals.  

“Sure, you did,” he said with a slight chuckle. “Big, purple, in the sky,” he pointed his long dark finger upwards.  

“That was a living thing?” I said, defensive posture be damn.   

‘Eartha, I call her.” At the exact moment I realized the reason why rain was warm and frothy was because it came from inside of a living organism, a look of amusement came over his face. When I realized that I did not know where the liquid came from, inside the beast, his look turned to gratification.  

“What did that... that... thing do to me?”  

“It showered you with love,” snidely he said. “And” he continued, “about a million of her fertilized eggs.”   

I wanted to jump in the shower, but I could not move. “Na... Na... Na...” I said progressively getting louder. 

“Well,” Lou leaned forward on the couch, looking at me with those coal-black-eyes. And I saw a lot of things in those eyes, things that still make my skin crawl, today. What I did not see was deception. “How else can you explain the urge to gossip.” He posed the question and waited. “How can you explain what you gossip about coming true?”  

“That only happened once,” I had no idea what I was defending myself against. He only leaned back on the couch, screwing his face, as he glared at me, again, with those coal-black-eyes.  

“And yet, I know it happened.” 

I thought about it, and about a million other explanations that did not have to do with me being molested by some sky creature.  

“Look, we don’t have much time,” he said, then stood up. “The Big G doesn't like when different spices hook up.” He stopped and looked to be in thought. “Especially when it comes to his precious humans and anything I create.”  

“What is that thing?” I demand to know.  

“It’s one of nine biological manifestations of the least desirable human traits, gossip.”  

“So, that thing is living gossip?” I ask with rising dismay.  

“With the ability to make gossip come true, don’t forget.” I sense braggadocious in his tone.  

“So, what did it want with me?”  

“This happens quite often during mating season.”  

“Mating?” I scream.  

“No, no, no...” I swallowed hard. “It never mated with me?” I shivered at the thought.  

“Did you not hear me say she showered you with millions of her fertilized eggs?”  

Fuck a shower, I wanted to burn my skin.  

“Now quickly,” he said, “before they begin to hatch.” His face turned so dark it became hard to distinguish his facial features, even with the sun pouring in through the only window in the place. “Even if a single one of those eggs hatch, the Big G will kill my Eartha, and I can’t have that.”  

“So, what do I have to do?” I asked in full panic.  

“Nothing,” he says, as he picks up his cane. The diamond flashes, and I felt chill cut through my body. I felt as if a part of me was being pulled away by an unforgiving, unseen, force. I could feel the Devil’s rage, his scorn, tugging at my soul. I could hear my soul struggling to hold on to this world. Then, nothing. 

It was more than not feeling or seeing anything. It was as if there wasn’t anything to see or feel.  

Suddenly, I jolted awake, fighting the air for dear life. When I stopped swinging, I realized everything seemed normal again. I did not have an urge to gossip. The uneasiness in my belly was gone. I could swear I was back to my gold ol’ boring life, which I was going to be late for work in, if I did not hurry.  

In the shower, the warmth of the water gave me pause. But soon, I convinced myself everything was normal, and the day before was just a bad dream, one I never wanted to relive.  

….... 

In the shower, Melvin whistles an upbeat melody to accompany the sound of falling water.  He was totally oblivious to a tiny, squishy, pearl-looking, microscopic egg, as it rolled its way in the direction of the bathroom, disappearing underneath the door.