The Sound of It

Sensitive Content: Centered around grief and death.

The rain should've started the next day. The boy had expected it to. That day was supposed to be sunny and warm, with no mud and no grey sky. He blamed his parents, as they had only said it was going to lightly sprinkle, not pour. He didn’t understand why it was pouring. This rain, the boy surely pondered, this heavy water sinking into the ground would mess up his day. He looked out of the window from his bed and despised the weather. He slammed his curtains closed and sulked into his blanket. Pulling the cover up, he covered his whole head, blocking sound, vision, and smell, trying to figure out something that he would never understand. The texture of the cloth made his skin crawl. He threw the blanket away from him, almost as if it were a boiling pan that was too hot, too strong, too much for the little boy’s imagination. He wanted to go back to sleep, where there was no rain and nothing else to disturb his day.

It took the boy ages to drip his legs out of his bed. He was trying to avoid going into the rain, the nasty weather, for as long as he could. But he had an event. One that his parents wouldn’t let him miss, even after relentless asking and begging. He tossed his blanket beneath his bed, where the monsters lived; now his blanket belonged with them. He dragged himself up and slowly walked out of his room. Unusually, the boy kept his room light on, scared of what lay in the dark. Still, the ricocheting of the rain hitting the ground seemed to echo through the house.

Walking down the stairs, the boy kept his eyes from the walls. The walls hung countless photos of his family, framing his older brother, sister, parents, cousins, and grandparents. They seemed to be closing in on him. He purposely stared down at his Batman socks the whole way down. When he arrived at the bottom step, he snatched off his socks and threw them upward. His mother patted his back, spoke a soft murmur, and guided him to sit at the dining room table. He grumbled as he sat down. Fidgeting with his hands as his mother poured his cereal and milk, the boy noticed how the window next to him was covered in trickles of water. He grimaced and pushed his bowl forward, refusing to eat.

His mother sympathetically emptied the bowl into the trash. Afterwards, she suited the boy up in fancy attire for the event. The boy hadn’t even said a word to his brother or sister yet; they had been talking to each other quietly across the table, almost piercing the heavy silence. When the three kids were ready, they headed into their garage to sit respectively in their car seats. The drive felt hollow, and the rain tapping the roof almost drowned the boy. Moments later, the boy could take it no longer; he covered his ears with his palms to block out the splashes, and it calmed him. His siblings whispered soundlessly, blending into the sound of the rain. His father sat stonily still in the passenger seat. Staring off into a far-off, mesmerized idea.

A few minutes later, the family arrived at the event, but the rain hadn’t let up. With an umbrella in one hand and flowers tucked in her elbow, the boy's mother tried to assist him out of the car. There was no luck. With the door open, the rain was louder than ever. The boy sat firmly in his seat, unwilling to move, as if the rain were poison; to him, it almost was. The boy did not get out when his brother and sister yelled at him to move. The boy did not get out when his mother’s umbrella turned upside down in the wind, and her dress became soaked with rainwater. It wasn’t that he wanted to ruin the day. It was simply the rain, venom being spit from the clouds.

The flowers, yes, that’s what led the boy to ultimately get out. His mother's roses, the ones she had spent days picking out, were swimming in the puddle next to the car, dropped. The boy stared at the wilting flowers, thinking how they didn’t deserve this. Sliding out of the car, he picked up the roses, took his mother’s hand, and walked with his family down to the ceremony. The boy put every thought into not focusing on the rain. The perilous, deathly rain. The muddy flower caught his attention now. If he couldn’t save anything else, he could protect the roses.

Gripping them tight, curled between his small fingers, the boy walked with his mother on his other side. Her loose grip on the boy's hand led him to think that she might not want to be there either. In a way, it helped the boy become distracted from the rain; they shared this feeling. Yet the black umbrella, miles above the boy's head, echoed the murmur of the dripping water. Along the pathway of open land, the family walked, though they did it slowly. Almost dreamlike, almost as if neither of the members were actually at a funeral. Then they arrived and gathered around the casket.

The boy’s father was completely detached from his surroundings, and himself too. The rain, rather than being something to project on, was like a blanket for him. It became a cover or shield from the rain, and he was peacefully drowned in water. Because of this, the wind, the heavy, flowing wind, yelling into the air, was not at all felt. The boy’s father ignored the sight of his youngest child staring at him. He ignored his father’s casket in front of him. He felt his wife's arm touching his shoulder and stared at the ground. He couldn’t seem to move. He couldn’t seem to think. He didn’t process the rain's noise or touch.

The boy's attention had switched to his father. A man who stood slowly drowning without any effort of trying to swim back up to the air. The boy didn’t know how to help; he seemed to never be able to. His father, whom he had only known to be strong and secure, stood like a shadow. The boy couldn’t tell if it was the rain or if the man was crying. He preferred the second option. The boy let go of his mother’s hand and walked over to his father. He stood next to him, yet there was this invisible barrier between them. One that neither knew how to comprehend, but both felt. The boy felt himself wrapped up in his blanket again, unable to move or speak as well. He was unable to help his father.

Rain soaked his suit and flattened his hair. The rose in his hand dropped into a puddle beneath him. The boy was sure the rain had done it.

It had ruined the sky.

Ruined his rose.

Ruined the people around him.

The boy let the rain bear his sorrow, not because it deserved it, but because nothing else could. But the rain gave no answers.

The memories of the day trickled through the boy's head as he attempted to fall into a slumber. With no luck, he stared at his closed curtains, unsure if the dropping of rain was continuous or playing only in his head. His mother slid into his room, becoming a figure to guard him from the monsters that were slowly attacking the boy's mind already. She crept into the boy's bed with him, and he rested his head on hers.

With silent tears slipping down the boy's cheek, he uttered under his breath, "I can’t sleep." His mother hugged him tighter and wiped his face clean. Her warm body relaxed his rushed heart. The boy was sure then that the rain had finally come to an end.