"Rain"

Francisco Mittag stood on the steps of the small church, where he had just attended the noon Mass. He watched the rain for several minutes. It had rained for three days.

The town square was empty. The uneven cobblestones of the small plaza were slippery. The rain continued falling, even though this was a gentler rain than when he entered the church, about an hour earlier. Francisco opened his umbrella and smiled.

Holding his black umbrella high above his head momentarily, Francisco looked out into the distance, where the narrow street ended. The steady rain created a bluish-white film that occluded his vision. He could not see the nearby hills.

Walking in the rain, Francisco got the impression that the world had gotten smaller. He noticed that all the storefronts were closed. He stopped and listened to the sound of the August rain hitting his tout umbrella. He watched the water trickling down all around him creating an enveloping and cascading circle of cool water.

Francisco Mittag looked in the direction of his home, about seven city blocks due east. He stood and thought. Then he turned his sight to the hills that began at the edge of town. He began walking westward.

Sloshing through water that in some places was about two inches deep, he smiled again. Now fifty-six years old, Francisco had not taken an idle walk in the rain since the time he was a young boy.

Looking around, he became perplexed in not encountering a single person in the small shops or in the street.

Francisco’s legs were soaked up to just right below the knee. He walked for a while.  Several minutes later, he stopped walking and turned around to glance at the town behind him. The steady rain created an opaque film that erased the bright contours of the town, much like the pencil drawings of many a bored child at school.

The rain did not let up.

Francisco continued walking. When he reached the beginning of the tree line that signaled the upward slope of the hills, he paused. The town had virtually disappeared. Only the church steeple was barely visible.

He walked into the woods. The tall canopy provided by the trees afforded him a respite from the rain. He sat on some rocks that he and his friends used to climb as young boys.

Closing his eyes, Francisco began humming Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.” He was immediately transported back to the small living room of his childhood house, where his mother sewed while listening to soft, impressionistic music. Francisco imagined his two sisters sitting nearby on the dining room table playing with dolls. He remembered how the three of them laughed when their father dozed off on his wingback chair and dropped the book he was reading. This was a nightly occurrence. Francisco smiled.

The rain continued. He placed the umbrella in the space where his left elbow met his bicep. He locked it in place, like a toddler holding a toy. He could not see the town. “How small the world seems,” he thought.

He then leaned back, his head now resting in the gap between two young trees. He kicked some standing water and smiled. Francisco then closed his eyes and slept.