Raindrops

• Claire Glover, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2013

The raindrops on Jayde’s window pane caught the light, shining like diamonds. One by one, they dropped and fell down the glowing glass, as if determined to beat each other. Jayde’s curiosity for the small details in life had grown like a new flower blossoming, but now, she had turned her attention to the bigger matters in life, and the smaller matters within them that people seemed to always pass over. Her grandmother had passed away only a day ago, and that’s what started her thinking about life. Life; a small, strange... thing. I mean how else could you explain life, she thought to herself. What is life? Life was a thing that used to be so treasured, so beautiful, so... precious. Jayde shook her head. Life was now treated with as much care as an old chip packet. She was torn between the real world and the world she wants it to be. She found that she was asking herself the same question over and over. Was she living her life at its fullest potential? Her vision went blurry as she continued straining her eyes to see the small raindrops race each other down the pane. Standing up, she walked over to her closed window, and wrenched it open. The hinges cried in protest and whined in complaint: It had been a long time since she had even bothered opening the window. She met halfway with the scent of fresh, wet grass and the beautiful smell of a cold midnight. No. She wasn’t living her life to the fullest potential. What would the world be like in a couple of years? Would living in a world where nothing matters be worth it? Would there be a point to living? The world and the people living in it were moving too fast for Jayde, and she found that she was falling behind. Like she was in a great running race, and all she was doing was tripping. She was nowhere near the finish line.
Jayde breathed in the fresh scent of the night and let it flow through her body. The cool feeling of a light breeze brushing past her skin had always overwhelmed her, but she now needed it more than ever. Jayde didn’t even hesitate when she jumped from her window, flying through the air like a swan gliding through water, before landing on the damp grass. Rain clung onto it like they was hanging for dear life. It was these little, beautiful things, that kept Jayde going. She walked down the lane, and it only got more fascinating. The streets were brighter than they ever were before and small flies danced around the orange light bulbs. It seemed so quiet, yet so full of life. Jayde kept walking, walking away from the house that had held so many dreadful memories. She was so shocked that she had been living her whole life this way, and that she had never really opened her eyes before now. That house was a constant reminder of how scared she was of the world. She had never been treated like an actual human being in that house- more like a rag doll. She was always tossed around and thrown into the corner by those who were meant to actually care about her. She had been brought up believing she was nothing to this world, but now it changes. She didn’t care where she was walking. She didn’t even have a plan for what she was going to do, or where she was going to stay. She didn’t know who she was leaving behind or who would miss her. All she knew was that she had to change her life, and tonight seemed like the perfect night to do it.