Return Oh Thunder

I wrote this some time last year. Now your all subject to it.

Way above you see it, like ants it moves so slow. The rain it is another thing that makes this story whole. One street there sits a wedding cake without a groom, a father left and missing in a young mans doom. It comes like sheets, blankets to smooth the quelling disturbance in this small town, a few streets, not long. House to house, the quiet runs about, stealing all the hope they ever had. Don’t be distracted, for life has choices that need to be met and shallows exceptions can easily blur the line. You’ll see it all now. You will see it all now.

…

Waking up is never easy especially when you need the rest, but today is a day for important phone calls. He sleeps anyhow and his hair is a mess, just a vagabond lying in bed. Many hours he had promised not to waste this day. He was to get up real early, take drugs and then shower and slide on his only pair of jeans. So he does but a few hours to late, he feels rested and ready to go. The drugs happen long before the shower. Flies are buzzing about, it’s late in the summer, and the bustling clamor had long ago headed south. For each one fly he sees four or ten, in a trail they move by his bed, no need to swat, they don’t exist, he knows it too. He just needs fresh air or a shower to wash his hair so he steps into the bathroom disrobed. The water runs down and he can feel his breathe, for the first time see its function. His stomach fills like a balloon and he thinks of an Indian wineskin. He sees his veins pulse and watches them move within him. He closes his eyes and he is lost, time has no meaning. He struggles to get back, shakes his head, this only makes things worse. In the living room his friends are watching porn and it makes less sense to him than usual.

“Jimmy, roll up your windows, its greenish out there.”

“Its my mom’s.”

…

Always the bride’s maid never the bride, fifty years and some things never change. She rolls the ring around in he hand while the party goes on; she had already paid for the catering and the DJ, she hadn’t expected a liar in the man she loved, waiting at the alter he abandoned her heart to break. An absent fiancé, a bastard son, at least her friends enjoyed the bar. She stared at the wedding cake and made a wish, he had picked it out you see and the groom on the cake unmistakably had hair, Leonard did not. The frosting was foam green like the car she gave her son two years ago, before things fell through. Tonight was suppose to be a night to celebrate, not for spite, so she left, cake under arm and into the street, not to fight, she left it there for wolves and vultures alike. She plucked the groom and hung it from her rearview. Now it started to come, curtains of rain had been pulled too close to shut out the night’s new gloom. She pushed the pedal in her brand new Chevy and drew a bead on the cake, for the sake of erase, she thought of her marriage and hate. Wheels spinning, she barreled onward, she didn’t cringe when she smashed the cake. She thought of this night and the mistakes on her way, she thought of her fate and the wish she had made.

…

Slides in movement toward the end of time like layers of film they set the story straight. Jimmy walks around the kitchen and doesn’t see that the building slides in his wind meal mind will lead him toward the light. In the laundry room he feels the socks and pairs them two by two. He sees within himself things that hurt and are all too true. It hurts in the way that you can’t feel it but in other times you’d fall to your knees. He thinks of his mother and her bastard of a boyfriend, how she chose Leonard over him. Things are more, they are more than they seem, and he feels the guilt and the weight. For a second he may see himself as others do, that he is selfish and destructive, apologies way over due. There are few times in a young mans life when things seem less hopeless and bleak, there is only one reason, the drugs in his body, that he sees the error in his ways. He will wake up tomorrow and forget the truth, nothing will change. He moves to the door and steps into the world that feels like a dome due to rain. Out to the street he sets his feet, the thunder and rain make him free. He does not stand there long with lungs full of joy and a mind full of blur, and a Chevy mows him down. He feels no pain he just knows what there is no need to say. He feels his life expire all the same. Just down this street break lights burn in defeat she didn’t see anything there. She jumps out and runs to his body lifeless, un-moving. When she sees whom it is she wails and she screams, recognizing her son Jimmy’s face while it bleeds, he has gone on to eternal sleep and now she really has nothing. It goes quiet, all of it, the rain doesn’t stop it persists, but she thinks of the wedding cake and she thinks of her wish. She wished that her boy would be safe, she had sworn him away for Leonard one day, she regrets it so much her soul caves. It slows now, all of it and she looks at him deep, like a mother should, and Jimmy begins to breath. He shakes himself off and flawlessly gets to his feet. He looks at her, see looks at him the storm makes their bodies clean. Life is funny if you make it, like a jar full of bees when you shake it, avoid the sting and believe.