In the Rain

I tie my raincoat around my waist shortly after we leave. With hard enough rain you get wet, raincoat or not. Might as well feel the rain on your skin.

I let the rain soak through my hair, which hangs down in front of my eyes. I can sweep it away easily, but I don't. There's something soothing about my hair being symmetrically matted to my head on all sides, acting as a conduit for little droplets of water that drip onto my lip. My hair forms these little curls when it's wet, and they bounce up and down when I run.

And we run. Fast enough that the water gets in our eyes. It burns a bit, and I go to wipe it off, with my shirt, but my shirt only makes my eyes more wet. And there's not a single dry thing in the whole world to wipe our eyes with, so we just say fuck it and keep running.

We go to Providence college. It's deserted because of COVID, but it feels like the world is closed to let it rain.

Water is flowing two inches deep down the side of road. It's pouring out of everywhere it's supposed to, like the creeks and gutters, and everywhere it's not, like the steps and pathways and baseball fields. There's a waterfall down the steps. It makes these exact little parabolas as it falls off each step, which stay perfectly still as water violently flows through them.

I lie on my back in a newly minted lake and try to float in it. It feels like it almost works, but the pond is too shallow near my legs, and I can't quite lift my calf off the ground without the back of my head hitting the bottom of the puddle.

The sounds are muffled and blurry, but the world doesn't feel congested. It feels precise and crystalline, with points of light from far away street lamps tracing angular paths off windows and puddles and raindrops.

We hear thunder and start running home. He runs because he's afraid of the lightning. I run because I like running. It's exhilarating to be excited when nature is excited around you.