A Catnap

It was four o’clock in the afternoon on a frigid day. The sky was bleak, shrouded in desperation and hopelessness. Excessive flashes of lightning filled the sky and the monster-like roar of thunder seemed as though were occurring in a dream. He sat slumped at his desk, took his pen and put the nib of it to the white sheet of paper before him. Preparing to bleed his gloomy thoughts, fears, and agony into words, the rain suddenly started to patter against the window pane of his isolated attic room, which overlooked a factory with chimneys puffing out clouds of smoke, making the sky seem even gloomier than before. As the heavy rain began to fall he felt anxious and distraught, walking from one corner to the other akimbo. His heart was throbbing like a car engine.

“Jack! Jack!” his mom yelled across the house. “Take Jimmy to the dining room and feed him. I’m going to the grocery store. Bring me my umbrella!”

Jack stormed out of his room and went to his 18-year-old brother, who was watching the rain outside with a vacant, lifeless look on his face. His head was leaning on his left side, and his mouth was curved and looked as though it had been anaesthetized. Jack grabbed the hands of the wheelchair and pushed it towards the dining room. Jimmy stuttered some words of which Jack didn’t grasp any except the word ‘Rai—n’, which forcefully came out of his curved mouth. This single word impinged upon Jack’s soul a heavy burden triggering sad memories which flashed like lightning through his mind.

Jim kept staring at him as he put the frying pan that trembled in his shaky hands on the table. Jack avoided looking at him, more out of a habit than a choice.

After feeding his brother and pushing the wheelchair back to the place where Jimmy was watching the rain with the same unchangeable, death-like look, Jack went upstairs to his room, and took his pen and started thinking. As he was immersed in his bleak thoughts looking through the window, a middle aged woman wearing factory workers clothing was laden with the food she bought in her right hand and black umbrella in her left. This drew his attention. He thought of going outside to help her but he was crippled with fear. “If it wasn’t raining, I would help her,” he thought to himself. Suddenly, as if sprung from under the ground, two heavy well-built young men, wearing black hooded jackets and dark sunglasses, headed towards the woman. She, by instinct, knew that they were thieves. She folded her umbrella and using it to defend herself. The rain began teeming down heavily, and the bullet-like pattering of it on the window glass of Jack’s room was horrible. Jackcould not believe what he was looking at, as though he was dreaming, he jumped from his armchair and put his trembling hands on the desk. The lady brandished her umbrella in the air and began shouting, “Help! Help!” There was no one outside, and the neighborhood seemed deserted as though it had been haunted or its residents had been killed by plague. Jimmy was also looking at what was happening outside but, crippled, he could do nothing except moan.

Jack went nervously from one corner to the other, scratching his head, and coming back again to his desk with his mouth covered from shock. One of the thieves grabbed the baby-like crying woman from behind by the neck and put a switchblade on it. “You bitch!” shouted the thief. “Why are you so stubborn? Give us your purse or I will stab it in your neck, bitch!”

“Please don’t kill me, please,” begged the lady amidst sobs and tears, which streamed down her red chubby cheeks. “I’ve got children to feed. Please!

Jack’s heart started pulsating in strong beats, and the thoughts in his mind began fighting each other. He felt as though his soul was shattering into pieces. He found himself baffled and unable to decide whether to save the woman or surrender to his phobia of the rain, which by now was drumming loudly on the window glass of his room. A resolute look appeared on his face as if he eventually made the decision to go out and save the woman. As he was going downstairs barefoot, he glanced at Jimmy who was muttering something. As though struck by lightning, he froze on the spot facing the door of the house. He and his brother exchanged silent looks. A train of poignant memories of the cursed rainy day on which Jack was chasing Jimmy in the rain, and suddenly Jimmy slid falling into a deep hole by the side of the road stirred in his mind. He remembered how he was kneeling down in the mud beside the hole and goggling at his brother who went into a coma. He remembered how his mom shouted at him, scolded him and blamed him for crippling Jimmy. He remembered how he cursed the day he spent outside in the rain. Since that accident Jack had developed a severe phobia of the rain. The loud shouts of the woman brought him back these memories. The strong beats of his heart and his speeding breath induced a strange feeling of running towards his room, throwing himself on the bed apron and smothering his thoughts with the pillow. So that’s what he did.

The shouts of the woman vanished like smoke. Nothing was heard now but the pitter-patter of rain on the window and the roof, and the roaring thunder that was heard in the distance. Jack moved the pillow from his head and went towards the window. He was shocked, and a tear rolled down his cheek as he saw the poor woman lying on the muddy ground in the rain. She was holding her waist from which blood was oozing and making a puddle of light red color beside her. Her umbrella was lying unfolded on the ground, and her blond curly hair turned disheveled by the rain, giving her a desperate appearance.

“Oh God!” cried Jack in despair. “The woman is bleeding. I have to help her.”

He went quickly downstairs. When he was coming down, he took the umbrella that was hanging on the wall. He stopped before the door and looked at Jimmy, who was this time silent, with the same vacant look on his face. Jack, still frozen on the same spot, hesitated from going out. He wished that it wasn’t raining, but the picture of the lady bleeding in the rain captured all his being and drove him unconsciously out of the door. He run under the drips of the rain with his umbrella unfolded. He felt the mild, fresh rain drops on his face, and he thought that it was foolish and inhumane of him to be controlled all this time by the memory of that cursed day he spent outdoor in the rain. With every stride he made, drops of water raised from the ground behind him and mud stuck onto his blue jeans.

He reached the wounded woman, and leaned down to her. He unfolded his umbrella and shielded her from the rain. He took her scarf from her neck and put it on the oozing wound.

“Thank you, my dear;” said she, puckering her mouth and bursting into tears.

“Err. It’s okay,” said Jack hesitatingly as though he was shameful of himself. “I’ll take you home and call the ambulance to take you to the hospital.”

He grabbed her by the waist on which he put the scarf, and she rolled her arm around his neck. The two looked like soldiers in action. When Jack and the woman were walking, he had a queer feeling that fluctuated between joy and sadness, victory and defeat. The anxiety and terror he had felt all these years started to disappear, and he felt as though a heavy burden had been taken off his shoulders. He eventually realized that what he had been afraid of was just an illusion in his mind. The heavy rain subsided and turned into a light drizzle. He wished from the bottom of his heart that it would stay like this the entire winter. He felt like a caged bird, which has been set free once and for all.

He brought the woman to the porch of the house and placed her on a deckchair. As though was coming from a deep well, he could hear the voice of his mother calling out his name downstairs, “Jack! Jack!” He raised his drooping head from the white sheet of paper and looked through the window. It was drizzling, but there was no woman and no thieves. All that he had witnessed was just a dream.