DAWN

It always happens the same way. 

At the very first drop of rain, as it touches down on the tarmac, as it splinters and shatters into tiny replicas of itself, splashing and covering a miniature piece of the road. 

I’m standing in the rain, or the beginning of it, at least.

Then magic dwells. Time contracts and collapses. Unwinds to the past and rewinds the future.

Do you remember?

What a silly question, but I make it nonetheless. 

I place a mental note wherever it sticks, to reminiscence, beforehand. Because it always starts the same, too, My heart flutters with excitement, and I don’t know why. Not yet. I smell that characteristic moist that comes with droplets. That unmistakable scent of life, of change. 

The mental note, somehow it sticks. Remember, I think for myself, It always happens the same way. 

Only I never remember it, not until it ends. 

It’s dusk. I am inside my truck, driving down the road, absentmindedly, that is. Because you’re brushing my hair with your fingers, tenderly massaging my scalp. On the radio, Come Rain or Come Shine fills the cabin. Our song.

I feel the ring touching my skin, too. I still have to get used to it. Just yesterday, at the picnic, I gave it to you. 

Sitting on the sheet, beneath the willow. “I’ll love you forever,” I said, and you smiled, somewhat baffled. I seized the opportunity. “Look,” I said, turning the ring and pointing at the inbound inscription, “It says so in here!” 

You beamed at my joke.

I simper with the memory. At that moment, I wonder: how can I feel that much love? How can so much joy happen and live within a person and doesn’t burst out and splash off in a myriad of colors?

Love. Eternal, ever-spreading, always-present, unfaded, love.

Eternal love to keep it short.

My mind races to find the reason why you’re with me, to find the cause and thank it personally . . . When was the moment when you chose me as your partner? I’d never asked.  Not that I can now. Nor that I need to.

You see, I’m lucky, that is. Honest truth. 

Having you is hands-down the best part of my life. Getting to know you is my all-in bet every day. Just to discover that new glint in your eyes; or that novel twitch of your brow. The new soft moan in bed, or the suggestive way you crisp the bedsheets . . . 

And God, we are kindred spirits. Besides the usual trifling differences, we share so many passions and ideals. . . like the same love for sunsets. “It’s something about the ending,” you tell me as you fix your eyes across the road, to where soft mountains frame the hiding sun. Your thumb brushes my hair in gentle, up-and-down strokes. “Only it doesn’t end because there is always the next day—whether we experience it or not. So, in a way, is a never-ending ending, if that makes any sense.”

I nod, bemused. You surprise me like that. With all that blitzing wisdom. 

And that fuschia-colored sky (because I said pink, you said fuschia) sucked out of our chests the very same breath and drew up our lips and parted them away in a foolish grin. In the kind of melting smile that only happens to people in love. 

A drop falls on the windshield. Just one. It splinters and shatters on the glass. “I want to live this moment forever,” I say and turn my head and kiss you, my lips parting yours, in a form that’s more like a brushing caress than a furtive peck.

Do you remember? 

Of course you don’t. 

But then I do.

I spin the wheel and the truck drifts off the road. The deer stares at me, immovable.

The tree’s trunk crunched the vehicle, thrusting the engine towards the cockpit.

“Immediate,” someone said when she saw you.

The sun is almost gone now. “Dawn,” I call you. “Dawn, babe—” But there is no answer. There never is. 

Everything is going black now. My vision fades. I know am passing out. 

Yet magic dwells. 

I focus on the windshield, at the exact spot where the first drop fell. A new raindrop splashes at it, but it hasn’t even expanded fully when it regroups, reforms, and reunites itself into the unit it was before striking the glass. 

And here it is when I understand.

That moment where it all comes crashing down on me. 

When I see the future rewinding and the past unwinding.

I leave your lips.

My smile fades

My eyes open.

I ask for it.

I feel love.

Your hand leaves my hair.

Dawn. 

I ran outside.

My heart raced.

I asked for it.

You see, I did ask for it. And God kind of granted it.

Eternal love, remember? That’s what I thought. 

Only our time together was short.

Magic exists. I’m transported back—or probably have not yet lived the present. Not like normal people do. 

At that moment, it always happens the same, at the very first raindrop of the season. I close my eyes and am not here anymore but there, with you. I’m plunged back to that moment, that instant. When I said I wanted to live it forever. So I do. I cherish the last second of my time with you. And I smell petrichor (you said that was the smell of rain when I asked you. So I say it, so you know I know now) and watch the pink sky again. 

And again, and again. At every drop.

My time on this earth flies away. The older I get, the faster.  The nurses and doctors think am crazy. Because I never speak, never have since that night. “How can someone so old behave like that?” They always ask when I smell the upcoming rain and my heart hammers and I leave everything and anything behind and run outside. 

Like I do now— 

I run. 

For that fleeting instant. For that minute moment of eternity when we are ethereal. 

Eternal love, it’s what it is.

Some people enjoy it for years.

Others relish it a lifetime.

Me? I get to be with you forever, babe.

And ever.

As long as I am— 

As long as it rains.