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Rain Perfume © 2003 Gayle Broadbent-Ferris www.skyglass.com |
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I opened the windows wide, wide, so the rain, the smell of rain, the rain perfume could get in. And it did. It came easily in and saturated everything. It flew swiftly in and lavished itself upon the couch, chilling me utterly where I sat upon that very couch, the bright plaid blanket useless and unable to keep it off me. It sank into my skin. I lifted my arm and smelled it, and my arm smelled like rain, new and chill and grey. The rain perfume meandered around the kitchen, touching pots and knives in the simple wooden draining rack. It drifted along the high tongue and groove ceilings, slowly. I watched from the couch. I couldn’t move—I was saturated, so cold I couldn’t scold or resist, but only enjoy, lethargically. Yes, as Lethe, cold waters, and dark.
Outside came the sound of the rain, plashing down on the roof and sidewalk, filling up the street and gurgling away.
It even got down the hall and infiltrated the pillows on my bed, weaving greyly in and out of the feathers, and settling deeply in. It leaked into my drawers, where I kept my dainty white nightgowns and panties, and into the bathroom where it rummaged softly in the medicine cabinet. It sifted quietly downstairs, one step, two, three. From the couch I thought calmly ‘That’s where the baby sleeps.’ Where the baby was in fact sleeping, in his little metal crib under a quilt his grandma made for him.
Many grey hours later my husband got home from work, splashily pulling up outside with round gold bright headlights and then banging briskly in the front door. He paused in the act of removing his thick jacket, water glittering on his hair. ‘What’s that smell? He asked, suspiciously.
I was sitting on the couch again, pretending to read a book of poetry. ‘What?’ I asked, looking up, ‘What smell?’ and opened my eyes widely, innocent. If I told him, he’d run out the door, now wouldn’t he? And we don’t want that.
THE END April 15, 2003
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