This post was originally published through Patreon on December 4, 2018.
Daniel wanders into the park he once frequented as a child. The time is exactly 5:45 p.m. He sits on the oak bench where, as a boy, he used to watch the other kids play and, huddling into himself against the cold, he stares into the sky.
Tomorrow, everything will change. Tomorrow, the life he once knew will be stripped away. It is a time of mourning, a time of sadness, a time of profound and sorrowful reflection.
By now, his fellows have positioned themselves at strategic locations around the world, and at 12:00 a.m. tomorrow, they’ll break the world and remake it in their own image. The change will not be gradual, and the people of the Earth will have no time to consider how their lives might have turned out differently. Daniel’s kind will peer into the sky—much as Daniel does now—and when the appointed time arrives, they’ll raise their hands, close their eyes, utter the sacred words, and when they open their eyes again, the world will be different.
Daniel doesn’t think the change will be for the better, but his companions have already made their decision and there’s no way he can stop them. Sometimes, he wonders how things could have played out if humanity had taken them in instead of casting them off to the outer fringes of society.
Daniel, for his part, believes that there are other solutions. But his personal convictions are futile without the agreement of his companions. So he savors the harsh chill of the evening air, basks in the explosive colors of the sunsetting sky, and treasures the old world one last time.
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In the end, it was the rain that saved Peter Norton’s soul.
He’d always dreaded gloomy weather. He was the kind of child who thrived beneath blue skies and endless sunshine and, whenever the clouds rolled in, like a neglected house plant, Peter would wither by his locked bedroom window and watch the open sky bleed. In each pattering drop, Peter perceived the haunting tale of a great paradise lost, and by the time each stormy day wound to its inevitable end, he’d curl up in bed beneath a thick star-spackled duvet and implore the sun to make a much-needed and sorely missed appearance soon.
This aversion followed him through adulthood and didn’t abate until the final day of Peter Norton’s life when the rain chose to reveal its long-held secrets to him at last.
At 73 years old, Peter could already feel the approaching storm even before the sky grew dark.
“No,” he whispered, “not today.” But he knew his prayer was in vain. Already Peter’s joints were aching. He tried to tell himself it was just his arthritis acting up, but when he pushed himself out of bed, shuffled to the window, and beheld the storm clouds gathering over the horizon, Peter knew it would be another sad and lonely day.
“Better make some coffee,” he announced to the empty bedroom, then trundled to the stairlift his son-in-law had installed three years ago to help Peter in his relentless struggle for independence and the hard-earned right to continue living in his own home.
Peter tried to maintain a positive attitude, but the joints in his arms and legs hurt something fierce and he could already feel those first cold and clammy fingers of the outside weather reaching into him, sucking up what little warmth and vitality he had left.
At the bottom step, Peter took hold of the walker he always kept beside the stairs and shambled forward into the kitchen, where he started a pot of coffee and sat down at the table to stare at the rapidly darkening sky.
It’s going to be a terrible day, he thought, and already his mind was reaching back to happier times.
Sandra had understood his rainy day moods. His wife of 37 years, she’d often sit beside him at the window while he pondered those heavy metal rainclouds in silence. Sometimes they danced, sometimes they laughed, and always, in the end, they made love. Sandra had never failed to lift his spirits during those dark and sorrowful days. But now she was gone and had been for going on eleven years. The house was dark and quiet, and in the gloom that crept inside through the sliding glass door, Peter thought he could glimpse his deceased wife, gazing down on him from above.
My sweet Peter, she seemed to say, and he could help himself no longer. The tears that were already brimming at the corners of his eyes started to flow in earnest, and against the cruel advice of a now extinct generation, Peter broke down and bawled like a baby.
All the pain and anguish of life’s empty promises seemed to rain down on him at once. Peter tried to control himself, tried to still those avalanching teardrops, but that terrible sense of futility and desperation overpowered him. It seemed to lodge in Peter’s chest, gumming up the works, and, in the midst of great hulking man sobs, it expanded like a poisonous flower in bloom and at last stopped Peter Norton’s heart.
Clutching at his chest, Peter’s head contorted, sagged, then fell limp against the table. All the strength seemed to go out of him until the final darkness of death crept stealthily into his field of his vision.
No, Peter thought. This can’t be it.
But it was, or so he thought until his drooping eyes caught sight of the sliding glass door once more and fixed again on the world beyond.
In that transitional moment, something inside of Peter’s soul transformed. Maybe it was the way the raindrops suddenly glistened in the fading light like falling diamonds, or the way they tinkled on the outdoor patio like tiny wind chimes. All Peter knew for sure was that, where once he’d perceived desolation, he now glimpsed something beautiful, something ineffable, something other.
His wife continued to peer down at him from her home in the clouds, adding her words to those of the soft-spoken rain. The harmony of their combined voices stirred something deep within Peter’s failing heart, and just before he lost consciousness for good, he discovered a profound and startling truth.
The rain hadn’t depressed him for all those years because it sang of sorrow, regret, and all things lost, but because it sang of the mysteries beyond the world and the secret paradise that remains apart from us on this side of death. Peter’s sensitivity to this otherwise hidden reality had always caused him great pain. Now, on the precipice of his own dying breath, Peter realized he was eager to cross the great divide and see for himself all that the rain had been keeping from him.
Come, said Sandra, offering Peter his final consolation. Come and be part of the rain with me.
And so Peter closed his eyes and, with one final swell of hope, did as he as told.
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