“Aqueous”
Away from the choking and indifferent city, sandwiched against
the empty rural borderlands lays the quiet rolling hills of Arcadia. The small
town is a place that for 50 years had been lovingly cradled by Mother Nature
and warmly nourished with the milk of time. Mighty sycamores uniformly line the
knolls like seams; vast expanses of lush meadow act as an accompaniment to the crumbling
tarmac that stretches through the entire city. A multitude of tin hatted shacks punctuate the sinusoidal
landscape. From afar, their glistening are like specks of silicon in iron ore; insignificant,
unwanted and out of place.
Slow to react to the influence of the bustling city, Arcadia
is the sinkhole of the state’s past. Many people often visit and comment on
this “breathing manifestation of long ago”.
They say it’s like a window,
an outlook into the ‘good old days’; the ‘golden times’.
A mute September horizon hangs grimly in the air; the sun’s
crimson brilliance greedily swallowed up by great clumps of charcoal that
silently patrol the skies. Several stray beams of its radiance burst through
the thick ashy air, only to be wasted on the lonely and worn road that sizzled
and bubbled in appreciation.
“She’s a real beauty, isn’t she Clarice. Built it with my own
2 hands I did” he proudly choofed with a wheezy breath.
“Yes Jim, it’s rather nice” she politely smiled back, as she
always did.
The couple sat on splintering wooden chairs, shielded by a
fading overhang of pine from the aggressive rays that that singed the air.
Perched on this vantage point, they had a perfect outlook on their browning and
barren rectangular patch of land. It wasn’t much, but it was theirs.
“Jim dear, you really ought to make a new one. I think it’d be
rusted to hell by now”
“How dare you” he spat, jumping out of his seat and glaring at
her with deep venom, cueing a silence and closing of her eyes. The
discomforting quietness was punctuated only by a gentle breeze jumping through
the tree tops and foul pants that angrily dissipated across Clarice’s turned
cheek. A bitter plaque of guilt crept up the back of Jim’s throat as he slowly
struggled back into his seat.
“It just needs another coat of paint, that’s all” he mumbled
into his chest, eyes rolling to the floor.
A familiar groaning of tortured wood resonated in the air as
the man rocked back and forth, as if he was some metronome mechanically swinging
to an easing cathartic rhythm. With a depression of his shoulders and a rush of
air, out came the bottling tension within. Much better.
His bulging arms from years of back breaking barbells lay like
loyal hounds at his sides, sitting in smooth sulci within his arm rests made by
countless hours of strain. With clouding unsettled eyes, he stretched back and
was again captivated by his pride and joy that had for 20 years been standing
tall in the middle of the yard.
Jaded with an utter exhaustion, Clarice stared blankly ahead-
emotionally desensitized to the aggression she faced on a daily basis. It
didn’t bother her- nothing did any more; not this decrepit slum,
not the broken marriage, not even the uncouf guzzling and rough clankering of
metal on ceramic from beside her. Nothing.
Breaking the submissive silence was a gentle drip drop on roof
above them. Like a barrage of artillery, the little aqueous shells hit the
corrugated tin, exploding like liquid bouncing betties and sending beads of
shrapnel flying. A stray pellet ricocheted onto her small pale face; the little
bead of water running through deep tired creases from endless hours of
theatrical practice- a former life where she embodied someone else; a fantasy where
she ran free; an escape from reality.
The gentle pitter patter and cool touch of the rain was
soothing to Clarice, closing her eyes and indulging in this moment as the
guilt, the shame and the scalding regret was cleansed from her fatigued
complexion, carried away by the rain and lost forever.
The drizzle quickly swelled into a torrential upheaval, the
heavy liquid barrage carrying soil into the air; filling the sharp, cold air
with a subduing hint of nitrates.
All the while, the little tin shed sat isolated in the middle
of the yard, suffering the unrelenting beating of the rain. It chiselled away
at the shed, chipping away the proud red paint and exposing its vulnerable
flesh. The water formed stagnant pools on the shed’s surface; slowly desloughing
its tough exterior into brittle flakes of dirty brown and swirling purple that
were quickly carried away.
“Look Jim, it’s rusted. I told you!”
“I’ll just paint over it, it’ll be fine”
And again, they just sat in silence.
A sudden shuddering jolt and unsettling groan came from the
little red shed as it fell in on itself. Crinkled tin sheets of different sizes
were sent sprawling across the damp tufts of yellowing grass. The destruction
exposed the shed’s decaying metal skeleton- bones ravaged by a vicious
corrosion- lesions simply painted over and forgotten.
The man slowly rose from his chair, clumsily hobbled over and
collapsed next to his pride and joy. His weary eye bled a tear, soon swallowed
by a stray raindrop that rolled down his face. He lay on the damp grass on his
side, entranced in a morbid fascination at the destruction the rain had
accomplished. Weeks of his blood, his sweat, his tears; gone forever.
Jim sat in a stony silence as his wife observed with a guilty
sense of satisfaction. Clarice gently tiptoed over the bending blades of grass and
sat beside him. They stayed in the garden for a while, oblivious to the
splinters of water that continued to fall on them. Their summer clothes clung
to their wrinkling bodies and their hair plastered to their drooping foreheads.
All they could do was sit in the dying rain and bleed bitter tears, because
that was all that was left.
