Reticent Rain

by Richard Acosta

  Axis IX

  “The acorn gives way to gravity and begins plummeting through the stars.”

  It just started raining very hard all of a sudden. The typical northwest rain couldn’t let us have even one day alone without its presence. The sun that had once peaked through the many branches warmly coating our backs was now being washed away by the sheets of rain drenching us. The water pelted our skin from every direction with such a fury that each drop almost pierced my skin. The brook had now turned into a swelling river with an apparent undertow and was now climbing up the shallow banks kissing at the tips of my high-tops. The incendiary pellets began coming down even harder now and was welling up into my eyes and distorting my vision like rocks being thrown into a wave less lake. My vision had become wavy globules of dark and light bouncing with every stream of gushing water.

  I rubbed my eyes of the water to see that the two of them had vanished in front of me. The vision of my brother and the ghostly girl had dissipated while the rain blurred my vision. The sheets kept relentlessly coming down all around me as I tried to muster up some strength to try to look for my brother. My body was starting to ache from the slam on the ground he instituted and my left arm was very blue from the instantaneous bruising that was setting in from the snapping of my bones.

  The river was beginning to fill up in my shoes soaking through the stitching and cheap glue that held to the flimsy soles. The ice cold water shivered raised goose bumps all over my body. I then decided that he must have crossed the river to see and confront her face to face with his intimidating antics. Seeing that I was already soaked from the downpour I slowly began inching my way through the river that was once a creek bed. The many slippery rocks slowed my pace down to just single step secured footings across the flattest rocks I could feel under my sole. At first I was ankle deep but as I got to the middle, I now found myself wading hip deep through the clear blue icy water.

  The current of the waist deep river was starting to drag me under but the grass on the other side was within full grasp of my hands. I lunged forward like a fallen tree to grasp the edge of the lawn but in doing so I fell hard on my left arm. The needles of pain came rushing to me, shocking the nerves in my whole body at that moment. I worked through the pain and numbness as I used my right hand to slowly pull myself up from the depths of the river. After I dragged myself to a part of the lawn that was secure from the river, I just rolled onto my back in relief closing my eyes temporarily to the world at large. The water had begun to pool in my sockets but I didn’t care, I just wanted to rest for a moment and breathe in my short victory.

  The rain awakened me as it let up. The drenching had stopped and once I emptied out the pools in my sockets I began focusing on the dense clouds above me. They were like engorged floating grey balloons tied in a long bulbous sheet making their way east. They slowed to a snail’s pace just enough for me to notice them floating seemingly above my head. I reached up pretending to grab one of the balloons so I could hoist myself up from where I laid on the lawn. It didn’t work. I was still glued magnetic to this part of the lawn.

  I felt a tugging on my right arm. I laid there thinking my brother was nudging me with his foot so I didn’t bother giving notice. I still focused on the grey clouds above my head passing by in slow waves loving the fact the rain had stopped. I now felt a pinch tugging at my arm like the beak of a bird breaking the shell of a nut. I still didn’t look. I just wanted to rest for moment until I could muster the strength to get up, then we would be on our way to school and from there I could get patched up by the school nurse. The pinch came and went again, now I just closed my eyes and sighed. I felt a slight tickle of nails from my mouth to the base of my nose.

  “I can see animals…” A voice whispered in my right ear.

  I opened my eyes and I saw the close up of a pair of turtle nostrils smelling the skin between my eyebrows. I sat up immediately. The turtle had managed to grasp with the claws of its hind legs onto the fat of my cheeks and stood there still smelling the skin between my brows. I calmly grabbed it by its abdomen and began lifting it off of my face while it was still tickling me as it let its grasp go. Its legs started flailing a little bit as I placed it between both of my shoes back on the ground. It just stood there looking up at me. His green camouflaged head was fully extended out of its partially cracked shell. The beady black dots for eyes just stared at me like they never saw a little boy before. The nostrils started sniffing again and the turtle came crawling up my pants.

  “I can see animals coming out…” a faint whisper filled my right ear again.

  The turtle was insistent on clawing its way back up to my face so I picked it up again. Its legs began flailing trying to escape my soft grasp; maybe I was tickling it back. I began looking into its beady black eyes. The perfect glass marbles were glimmering from the grayish ambient light. I could hear a faint whispering again in my right ear and thought it was the turtle.

  “Is that you talking to me?” I asked it.

  The little nostrils just opened and closed trying to catch any whiff of my brow skin. Its sliver of a mouth never moved not even to give a sigh of air from its tiny little lungs. I put his head up to my ear hoping I wasn’t just hearing a howling wind brush into my ear. I felt its short cold puffs of breath escaping from its nostrils into my ear canal then it nipped the lobe of my ear. I pulled it away from my ear and looked at its small head.

  “No. I must be hearing voices or something” I talked to it again hoping it would answer back but the turtle never did. All it wanted to do was sniff me with its tiny little nostrils still breathing in and out. I made several more attempts to get an answer out of it but all I got in return were its tiny puffs of air.

  The sun started to cast a faint glow in between the unfilled spaces of grey sky. The trees across the river were starting to shoot spires of long shadows up onto both of our faces; warming the cold off. It stopped sniffing at me as the sun showed more of its light to the two of us sitting there on the lawn. I think we both understood that I just wanted to get going along to school with my brother and finish this last day.

  “I’ve gotta go little guy.” I said to the turtle.

  I managed to stand up while cradling the turtle in my right arm. It took one last look at me and retracted his head into his broken shell. I walked a step or two to the swelling river and placed it down by the riverbed. The water was still rushing pretty hard from the sudden rain we had just experienced and I didn’t want it to get thrown into the rapids. So I stood there and watched it for a little bit. It still didn’t poke its head out. I couldn’t even see its beady eyes within the confines.

  I studied the shell it lived in. The crack ran down what could’ve been its spine; I don’t know. It appeared to have been run over by a car at one point, possibly from the dirt road a ways off that we came from. The left side had a more sunken in appearance and was more battered on that side of its shell versus the right almost pristine side. The swirls and splotches of green camouflage were coated and connected like they were painted into its shell with many hues and shades of green.

  It still laid there in the grass for a little awhile before the head began to protrude out. This time it wasn’t trying to sniff me but was rather just looking around at where both of us had ended up. Its head fixated on a spot just off in the distance from the curvature of the lawn. Slowly the legs began to protrude out from the shell and the turtle began to walk cautiously around the rim of the lawn, just I had in crossing the river. It felt every step in the grass so as not to slip into the deep rushing river just off to its left side. My eyes followed the turtle as it slowly paced around the lawn being very careful not to fall over the embankment. With all of the lawn to walk in, I wondered why it chose to walk along the edge.

  The lawn had met the light feverishly heating the reinvigorated lush green with excitement. The macroscopic beads of rain that managed to cling to the blades began to spread out and shrink while being heated into a dewy steam.
The light infused mist crawled just as the turtle did, slow and cautious, across the curvature of the lawn meeting up to another wall of thick overgrowth.

  The turtle managed to make its way around the edge of the lawn and began to retreat within the confines of the overgrowth. My eyes followed it to the very edge of the tree line just before the mouse sized swath that was seemingly carved for the turtle swallowed it whole. It must have made this venture a thousand times over as it knew where to go.

  I heard something off within the mesh of forest that the turtle travelled into; an intermittent low rumble or buzzing sound. The sound had come and gone rhythmically from the distance. I started to inch my way towards the edge of the lawn where I perceived the sound was coming from just as the turtle did. I walked cautiously through the ankle high mist until I came upon the edge of where the lawn met the overgrowth. The sound was a little bit louder and more distinct in my ear now as I stood at the edge. I placed my right hand through the mesh of the forest like a hand opening a draped window. The sound inched up just a tad louder in my ears; a low rumble scowl of warning.

  I didn’t retreat but I didn’t go any further. I just stood there and tried to focus out into the twisted rods of bark that made up the surrounding forest. The subdued light that did seep into the forest wreaked havoc on eyes as I tried to focus off on anything that could have been making noise. I didn’t see anything so I looked down at the ground and saw a small trail, a turtle sized trail. My eyes followed it as it veered a slow left from where I stood and I finally saw what was making the noise right in front of me.

  “I can see animals coming out of their faces…” whispered my right ear as I heard the grunting coming from my brother.

  My eyes darted all over the scene in bursts of focused images. Her body was dirty and naked as he thrust on top of her; his pants met the cuff of his shoes. His hands gripped her throat; cuticles filled with muck. He grunted with every thrust as her skin paled under the might of his hands.

  Rivers of tears began to flow out of my eyes as I screamed out in horror. This jolted my brother off of the little girl; his pants dangling. His eyes had met mine but they looked different to me, more brooding. He slowly pulled his pants up and slowly made his way to me.

  “I can see animals coming out of their faces…” The voice whispered a final time.

  I started to move backwards from where I came from, never keeping my eyes off of him. I saw a wide grin begin to mark his face as he got closer and closer. Finally we met face to face and I just fell backwards to the ground in cowardice. He never wiped that grin off of face as he sat resting on my chest with his arms extended above his head…The rock came crashing down on my face.