Rain

• Christopher Jeffree, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2019

The weather took a turn for the worse. Rain spewed down and lightning blew up the pitch black canvas like grey fireworks. People walked in it unprepared, soaked through all their layers. Cars slushed through the lakes that were formerly roads. These people weren’t the only ones unprepared.
***
May was busying herself throwing what she could into a bag before Patrick came back. Computer, check. Books, check. She couldn’t be in the same room as him anymore. Filth and disgust. These were the words May now associated with the man she once loved.

“You don’t have to leave.” Said Patrick with a surprising lightness.
“Yes. I do.” May expected he would start his plea to get her to stay.
“Please, don’t. I need you.”
“Sure you do.” May said sarcastically.
“What do you mean by that?” Patrick said sounding wounded.
“I just can’t be with you.”
“But we’ve never been hap-“
“YOU, have never been happier! You are too caught up in parading me around to your mates like a little show dog and using me like a barbie doll that you don’t even think of me or care how I feel!” Her words came out firing like a machine gun. She couldn’t take any more of his puppeteering manipulations.
“What do you mean? May, you have always been my first priority.” Patrick’s brow began to clench in an expression of perplexity.
May just shook her head.

The thunder was now booming like a bass drum hidden behind the canvas that stretched darkness across the sky. The bombarding rain drowning out the quietness.

“Can we just sit down and talk about this? Please? I just want to understand.”
“I’ve already told you Pat.” His name felt like acid in her mouth. “Now, get out of the way!”
“May, please don’t go! Just wait until the storm has passed, please. It’s too chaotic out there!”
May ignored him. It was Patrick’s classic move. Get her to stay, get talking about all the golden memories they had.

Lighting now shot across the black canvas like white flames.

“May, please you are the love of my life. I am lost without you. You are my guiding star in my dark times.” His words were meaningless and empty. Like the lightning they were bright but were in the colours of grey and white.
“Patrick!” May’s face flushed with redness “I AM LEAVING! So don’t use these clichés. They don’t work!”
“NO! You are not leaving!” His eyes were now cold. Heartless. They fixed upon her. “You are staying with me!”.
The thunder was now deafening. The lighting, blinding

***
In the darkness. Blackness. Nothing is seen. Only heard. A rustle of plastic. A trunk closing. Car starting. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The lightning and thunder had passed. The black canvas that stretched across the sky gone. Now, only the rain remained. Showering down. Washing everything away.