Rain on Tap at The Bar

A Summer’s Sun bears Bright down on the Earth;

A Winter’s Chill gives cause to Light your Hearth.

But keep a Watchful Eye for Seasons’ Bane,

And Mind you Never find yourself in Rain.



The Waters may well ease the Flowers’ Wilts,

And Floods of Heaven’s Tears may soothe your Guilts.

I urge you, from Temptation, yet Refrain,

For it’s a Sin to Dance among the Rain.

****************************************************************************

“But don’t you ever wonder?”

Avi shrugs at her, eyebrows raised over the rim of his dark glasses. Kira groans, fist clenching in the ground at her side. She tosses a handful of loose sand and dirt at him as she collapses backwards, and he looks on amused, making a show of brushing it off him.

“You’re no fun.”

“I don’t quite know what you’re asking.”

“You know. All that old rain stuff. In the hymnals.” 

She stares up at the slowly greying sky. Somewhere above her, she hears Avi hum absently as he shifts towards her. She lets her eyelids flutter close, and so feels more than sees Avi settle down beside her, offset at an angle, their heads close together.

“Do I wonder…”

“I don’t know. What it means, what it is… Why?”

She doesn’t need to look to know he’s shrugging again. “Nope.” He pops the ‘p’ and it hangs in the silence that falls between them.

When she opens her eyes again Avi has turned his head to face her. He smiles, soft and private, and she returns it half-heartedly. 

“Hey,” he says, propping himself up on an elbow. “What’s this about, really? What’s eating you?”

“I don’t know, I just…” She trails off, pushing herself upright. “You ever feel stuck?”

Avi sits up as well. “Sure. Every other day, probably. Twice, on Tuesdays.”

“I mean, like, really stuck. Cosmically stuck.”

“You know I try not to think about the cosmos if I can avoid it.”

She ignores him, deservedly so, and he motions at her to carry on.

“It’s like…” She leans back. “What are we doing? We come out while the sun shines and scurry back underground at the first signs of water - living like voles. And no one seems to know or care why.”

She watches him settle into himself, elbows on knees, and knows she has his full attention. He considers her words. “We know why, to an extent.”

“We know some old books claim it’s a sin. That’s hardly a reason.”

“But it’s the start of one. Even if you don’t think that dancing outside in pouring water upsets a higher power, there’s likely some sort of reasoning for including it.”

“Like?”

“Like anything? Maybe the water’s acidic, maybe it’s impotable. Hell, maybe it’s just to keep people from wasting time and resources drying themselves and their clothes whenever they got wet.”

She isn’t sure how her face reacts to his words, but it must be noticeable, because he leans forward, face earnest as it seldom is, glasses nearly falling off his nose.

“This isn’t me saying… I’m trying to understand, I promise I am. I’m just not sure there’s some conspiracy going on here.”

“I’m not saying there is, I just -” She sounds frustrated, she knows she does, and perhaps she is frustrated, slightly, but it’s not at Avi or at the conversation. Not precisely. More, of a general frustration. Cosmic.

“You just feel stuck.”

“Yeah.” She breathes. “It’s dumb, I know.”

“You’re dumb. But no, I, think I get it. Kind of. Obliquely perhaps, but… You’re in a rut, so you’re looking for some change. Why not go after the biggest institution of all?”

“Maybe…”

“But, I do think that’s all it is. Nothing wrong with it, but - don’t pin all your efforts and hopes on this one thing, okay. Because I don’t want you to be disappointed if it turns out there’s nothing there.”

Kira doesn’t say anything, and slowly Avi turns his gaze back skywards. The grey clouds creep steadily across the sky, slowly blotting out the sun where they sit.

Eventually, Avi pushes himself up to his feet. “It’s getting late. And looks like rain. We should head back down.”

He holds out a hand. Reluctantly, Kira takes it, and lets him pull her up. And together, they head back down into the caverns.

****************************************************************************

It’s not that Avi was necessarily wrong, about her looking for change, seeking adventure wherever she could find it. It’s just that she doesn’t think he was exactly right either.

Because if she’s being completely honest, she doesn’t truly think there’s some grand conspiracy at play here either. She’d likely agree with Avi even if he didn’t tend to be right about these matters. She doesn’t think going out into the rain will solve her life’s problems, or even her current feelings of stagnation. She definitely doesn’t expect to discover the secrets of the cosmos.

But she thinks it will feel good. Grounding, in a way that little else does these days. Being outside, floods of tears soothing her petty guilts, pelted at by water to keep her startling present, drop by cold wet drop.

She thinks it will feel freeing. Freeing beyond the feelings of liberation that come inherent in acts of rebellion. 

She can hear water gushing in rivulets and streams above her, hears the rain battering against the round metal doors that shield their tunnels and caverns from the elements, and she decides.

She has to get out there.

She has to know.

****************************************************************************

“Sneaking out?”

She pauses, hand gripping cold metal, and half turns her head over her shoulder.

“How did you…”

Avi snorts, stepping forward and out of the dim overhead light. “Please. I know you.”

He stops right next to her, and waits, expectantly. 

“It’s not what, or. I took on board what you said, it’s just- Or…”

Avi half smiles, half laughs at her. He looks soft, in the half-lit corridor, dressed in soft, loose sleepwear and no glasses in sight, but his hair is as artfully styled as it had been earlier that evening. It’s late, and even she had her epiphanies while making a token effort at sleep, but she knows instantly that Avi has not been to bed yet, so certain that he’d be back up.

He raises his eyebrows at her. “Well then? After you.”

And together, they walk out of the caverns and step into the rain.