TWM Feature | The Night Rain's Symphony
"The Night Rain's Symphony"
| Written by Issy Tamesis |
I’m fighting off sleep again tonight.
When was the last time I slept on time? I can’t remember. I used to be so punctual in my sleep schedule, following it to a T, just like every other plan I have. But now? Sleeping earlier than 12:00am is rare.
I shake my head, trying to align my thoughts like words on a page. I sit at my desk. It’s past 12 in the morning. I’m writing…something. I write on a hand-bound notebook, one of the cheap ones found at craft stores. It’s small; could probably fit in a pocket, but I never bring it anywhere. It always sits on the shelf of my desk, on top of a plethora of other, half-used notebooks. Bright yellow paper cover, the shade of yellow that could give you a seizure if you stared at it long enough. Plain pages with my scrawled handwriting in a dozen different types of pens. It’s an ugly thing, to be honest.
What’s inside is even uglier.
I don’t even know when I developed this habit, when the monster in my mind awoke. The urge to meticulously plan everything. Everything. Not just what needs to be done, but what could happen. How I should act if the teacher called on me if I’m not prepared for an answer; what I would do if I woke up ten minutes later than usual; how to keep my emotions in check so I won’t say something I don’t mean.
It’s the only thing that keeps the monster in my mind quiet. I wish I could ignore all my duties and responsibilities like other people, but the more I try to forget, the stronger the monster becomes. It sends ragged claws across my stomach, twisting tighter and tighter in a never-ending spiral until I’m sure about to vomit. It’s not like a regular animal where neglect leads to its death. No, neglect seems to feed this monster.
How many nights wasted away like this? I don’t know. Too many.
I stretch out my arms, twisting around in my chair so that my back gives that satisfying pop. I roll my head across my shoulders, and it creaks like the front door of an old, abandoned house. I am about to crack my knuckles when I hear it.
Soft, at first. One note. Like a musician checking to see if her instrument is in-tune. A single, gentle, note. I don’t think much of it, and return my focus to the half-empty pages in front of me. Pages full of schedules and lists and timelines of the coming week. Words so close together and written in such sloping lines that I can barely decipher it at this hour.
There it comes again. Stronger, this time, but I’m still not sure of what I hear. I face my curtain, and cock my head to the side, trying to figure out if my head is just tricking me like it usually does. It’s a melody now, a single line of notes carefully making its way into the world. It sounds…hesitant, almost. Like whoever’s playing the song isn’t sure of what to do.
I’m about to pull back the curtain. I am determined to prove to myself that the song isn’t coming from outside, but from the confines of my own brain. Somewhere in me, though, a voice whispers, Please, be real. But just as I pull away the curtain, that soft melody becomes an entire symphony.
And rain hits my window in rhythmic percussion. The sky is awake with me tonight.
Before I realize it, I’m out of my room. The hallway is dark, as it should be, and I find myself creeping down the stairs of my house, avoiding that one creaky step in the hopes of letting my family sleep blissfully, oblivious to the orchestra playing just outside the walls. I’m twisting the doorknob of the front door now, throwing it open.
The music pours into my ears in magnificent waves. The scent of petrichor fills my nose better than any scented candle can. I walk out from the shelter of the house, and look around at the sight the rain has orchestrated. The breath leaves my lungs entirely.
Rain is pouring everywhere. It’s sliding across the driveway, sparkling in the yellow lamplight. It drips down the trees, weighing down on the leaves and showering the ground below. It sloughs off the eaves of the roofs in great showers, creating glorious puddles in the gutters. It glides off the slick surfaces of the parked cars, and the light dances across the windshields and slips onto the cobblestones below. Across the driveway I can almost hear the sound of it splashing into the pool, peppering its usually still surface. The night is awake tonight.
The rain soaks through my clothes, but it isn’t frigid. It’s warm as it patters down my cheeks and shoulders, dripping down along my back and falling at my feet. I tilt my face up to the sky and smile. When was the last time I smiled like this? I don’t know. Can’t remember. So I keep smiling, twirling in the driveway with arms spread, dancing in the night rain when nobody else is awake or insane enough to go outside.
For a moment, I hear the growls of the monster in my head. What will your parents think when they see the wet floors in the morning, or if they realize you were awake and soaked to the skin? It will probably be 1:00am by the time you get to sleep, do you think you’ll follow your schedule as planned?
I look up at the sky again. Feel the rain tickle my cheeks and stroke my hair lovingly as its chorus roars on. Almost as soon as the monster starts to growl, it stops. For the first time, I hear nothing in my head but the glorious melodies of the night rain’s symphony.
