Rain and a Box

Aging is rough. It tears at you, attacks you, and so you build up defences; walls and barriers to make you safe. Whatever. You know all this. How all of a sudden you have to do things right and not wrong, how what other people think matters, how there's never enough time, or too much, how maybe someday you can do the thing that gets someone to have sex with you.

So all that sucks. But, sometimes, there are things, moments, water thrown onto the baked desert of the mind, that awaken childishness in you. Rain is one of those things for me.

Yesterday, I was waiting in the car for my sister to get out of school. In a strange twist for Summer, it was cool and raining, fat drops all around. My sister was late, so I was reading, and waiting, and listening to the rain. My dad (who I share this car with) keeps the back window open, and as I glanced backward and saw that open window, with (of course) the rain streaming in, getting the seats wet and drowining the trash in the cupholders. And in the moment of looking-back (which should really be a word in English. I mean, we should have a word that means that) I saw a spaceship, a crucial panel blown open, sparks flying, the void flowing in. Needless to say, I disengaged my harness and kicked myself back there, sealing the damage.




suddenly seeing the insides of my car as a spaceship, tapping childlike faculties of imagination and wonder: ****