The Rain

"What are you trying to do, Robbie? Wake up the dead?"

His grandmother's voice materialized from memory, and he proceeded to see in the phantasm of dream the dead waking up. Perhaps the graveyard was full. Those interred had to accommodate those arriving. If the trumpet had not blasted for those previously interred, well, that's death. So, the dead were walking, all of whom were in various states of decomposition. They stumbled down a road, moaning, complaining and nit-picking, the recent departed desiring not to be seen in the company of the thoroughly decayed ancients. Robert recalled the eschatological jest of Balzac whereby God pulls a joke on the piously departed by failing to show up for the Last Judgment.

His phone jolted him from his sleep-supressed laughter.

"Hello?"

"How are you, Robert?"

"Coming off a strange dream."

"And?"

"I was contemplating that assignment on class structure that you requested me to evaluate."

"Funny. Are we where we should be? Or could be?"

"The universe will speak Thursday."

"This is Friday."

"Oh, so it is. You're amazing Alicia, prepping my existential shortcomings."

"Oh, I am in the here and now, exhaustively at times. Even for would-be comedians."

That was Alicia. Objective, humorous, but fair and compassionate.

"It's a bit late, I suppose, but I wanted to apologize for that remark concerning Kate. I owe that to you."

"I want you to understand, Robert. I was separating from a relationship in which I had invested so much time, emotion and hope. I was devastated. A wreck. Kate came over one night to sleep with me. Held me in her arms while I wept and slept intermittently. Mothered me. That kind of empathy is golden and rare. I would have done anything for her."

"Would you have made love to her?" Robert had replied, possessively.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that remark," Alicia had replied.

"Meanwhile" replied Alicia, I've got 'Night of the Iguana' for this evening. OK?"

"That's fine."

"Should I pick you up?"

"No, I'll take the uptown bus."

"Later."

Her disconnect accentuated his solitude. He removed a bottle of beer from the fridge, pouring the contents into a tilted pilsner glass, savoring the cool, slightly bitter heritage of a German pastureland, washing down a bit of Gruyere cheese.

Ah, yes, he mused, Ava, masterfully depicting under the tutelage of John Huston a real woman, strong, yet vulnerable. Knowing when to be strong and when to permit vulnerability. Love realized. A lesson. He pondered the insights of a Tennessee Williams, Oscar Wilde, Somerset Maugham et al, into the eterne femme, objectified, the creative gaze of being on the outside looking in, considering their sexual orientations.

His mind strayed to Alicia, a fortnight ago. An afternoon in his apartment. The summer storm came swiftly. He recalled the sentient whispers in the storm.

"Lover me. Life me."

The hail pulverized the topmost leaves of the trees. It lay an inch deep upon the ground or swirled in the gutter stream of rushing water.

"Empty yourself. Taste me."

The leaves were sprinkled like chopped parsley upon a pasta dish. The sun swiftly reappeared and all melted away. Their breathing was calm. Falling in the storm. Regenerated in innocence.

Walking to the bus depot, Robert considered the duality of existence. How one perceives and integrates the world in their fundamental isolation, and how you embrace that world in your interpersonal relationships. The melding of the two was the challenge of the human condition.

Robert was prone to heed, "Loneliness has been called an evolutionary survival mechanism." He recalled the words of Paul Tillich, the existential philosopher, that, "solitude expresses the glory of being alone, whereas loneliness expresses the pain of feeling alone." An eternal paradox. Theoretically, modern digital mass communications were designed to unite the community, in reality fostering a greater sense of loneliness. Robert recalled phone conversations, when completed, creating an aura of emptiness, a longing for the human touch, the absence of the intimacy of the personal.

He could hear the voice of Alicia, saying, "that to love too hard and unwisely was more a fear of isolation than a mutual understanding of each other's needs for boundaries, intellectual freedom and inner peace. He thought it was like seeking an imaginary land where all the questions have been answered, in reality a utopian dream on one hand or a stultifying ennui on the other, the struggles of the moment, being the elixir of life.

As he walked through the music of the city, he knew that choices continued to be offered. To join that harmony and occasional bewilderment.

Time had altered Robert's perception. He felt he was incomplete, not whole. Pieces of him were gradually missing or lost. In conversation with Alicia, she sympathized. "Go back, Robert. Find the disconnect. Adjust like I have had to adjust many times. There is something back there that you have lost touch with."

He stood on the passenger island inhaling the sweetish metallic vapor of cafe, exhaust fumes and approaching rain. Heat lightning stippled the darkening sky, enveloping the city in phosphorescent light. Crowds emulated the flickering movement of the check-cashing sign, while impatient hardened sparrows deftly sipped the brackish rivulets of overturned flower tins. Amid all the peripatetic movement of his mind and surroundings, he knew he possessed the love of Alicia

He needed Alicia, her openness, humor, her love and beauty. Funny, he thought, beauty wasn't always fourth. Have I grown? Has Alicia? Or both?

He would rest in the later evening in the peace and enlightenment of her embrace. The warmth and shelter of her body, a transcendent simplicity beyond words, a beautiful incandescent feminine power.

As he entered the uptown bus he was confronted by the peering of numerous sad eyes. Departing the bus uptown, he was soon engulfed by the desolate broad acres of the park. Violent lightning quickened his pace. Then he stopped, looked askance upon a grove of inundated shimmering oaks, beyond, and beheld a child, romping, happily, indifferently.