Reticent Rain

by Richard Acosta

  Axis XI

  “The acorn embeds deep into the earth and begins to awaken.”

  I awoke to screaming that I perceived off in the distance somewhere in front of me. The sun appeared to be on top of my face as I was blinded by every shaft of light that I mistakenly let into my opened eyes. The long howling shrieks filled the air ringing like tinnitus in my ears. I just flopped onto my face to shield my eyes from the blinding sunlight. It didn’t immediately help. Even with my eyes closed shut I could still see the piercing sun x ray the inside of my eyelids. The red squiggles of capillaries resembled a gothic fence to my impaired vision. The screaming in the background never stopped.

  Then the light slowly subsided but I didn’t want to open my eyes just yet until I was sure I could manage the onslaught of its brightness. I raised my head a little bit enough to wave my left limp appendage over my closed lids; the light broke up just ever so slightly. I felt it was safe to look. The ground beneath me came into focus very quickly. I started to grab at the earth to sort of push up the torso of my body but the tingling numb started to wash over me again. I gave up pretty quickly at this point and just plopped my head down again.

  The shrieks in the distance never stopped but had started to get coarser as if whatever was screaming had been at it for quite some time. They were sounding drier and coarser as the minutes passed. The pain in the screams was evident.

  I took in a few more breaths and tried once again to grasp at the earth. My right arm did most of the work of leveraging me as I barely hovered inches above the ground. I pushed my body back so as to perch on my knees to begin the ascent of hoisting my body upright. It was working, albeit slowly. I rose up on my knees and used my arms like a gyroscope to give myself the momentum to rise all the way up. The pain was almost unbearable but by this time I had grown accustomed to it; building a high tolerance to the tingling.

  I stood looking all around at my surroundings. The river was mere steps away and I was right in front of the large glass enclosed sun porch that was attached to the Victorian styled house. The rippled depression era glass echoed my face in the subdued sunlight. My forehead had a huge gash in it and in fact the blood had dried into a thin paste covering my face like some sort of face painted Mardi Gras talisman.

  I began to peer into the sun room while looking past my reflection in the wavy glass. The porch was only occupied by a bright white wicker bistro table set with two cups of hot steaming tea. The chairs had been pulled back already awaiting the arrival of some couple. In fact, I could smell the vague sweet scent of cinnamon penetrating the sill of thin glass that was emanating from the tea cups. In the back of the room I could only make out a dark black wall that appeared to be moving in slow undulating waves; maybe it was the glass messing with my eyes. The screams were still apparent albeit becoming more and more subdued.

  “Nice isn’t it.” A voice from behind me calmly spoke as he was placing his hand on my right shoulder. “I have been searching a little while but I finally found you out here.”

  I looked in the glass back my echo and saw a man that was about a foot taller than me smiling a wide eyed smile. I noticed he was dressed head to toe in loose white hospital like attire. His shirt had the name “Jerome” embroidered over the left side of his shirt.

  “I knew you would be back and that is why I made us some tea.”

  “Sorry mister I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

  “Well, we can talk about all that when we get inside. The important thing is you came back.”

  I turned to look at him in puzzlement as he gently guided me towards the right side of the sun porch. The wavy glass started to magnify the light into the porch and the small room was beginning to light up with a slight glow. There was a sliding door that we came to and the scent of that cinnamon tea was stronger yet. He opened the sliding door and it was just like breaking the seal off of a pressurized can of strawberry jam. The scent of the tea hit me full blast and I was instantly salivating at the mere thought of that sweet spicy tea hitting my tongue.

  “Have a seat.” He guided me to sit on the left as he sat to the right of me. “Go ahead and relax. This is your favorite tea, I remember.”

  “It sure is.” I took a few sips of the delicious sweet and spicy tea.

  “Now, let’s just finish where we started off before.”

  “Sorry mister, I don’t remember ever…”

  “Surely you remember? The man behind the drapes in your dark dreams? You told me about his eyes and his smile and that he always hid behind the thin drapes.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

  “Have some more tea; it will help you think back to those dreams… So I can help you.”

  Maybe he has me mistaken for my brother. I recall that he would tell me sometimes that our parents used to take him and have him talk about his problems to a doctor. He told me that he had to tell him about his feelings and things he dreamt about and that he was a phony doctor. My brother claimed the doctor never knew how to fix him or anybody for that matter. He never knew how to help anybody. I immediately stopped drinking the tea.

  “Now back to your dreams.” Jerome had pulled out a red composition book and with a pen began to scribble in it as I talked.

  “Look mister, I have to be going to school. I’m going to be late.”

  “School? School is not going to start for few days yet. Besides you mustn’t worry about that right now.” He kept scribbling feverishly at our interaction.

  “Today is the last day of…”

  “I’m sorry, you’re probably just thinking back. Go on and go ahead explain it to me then.”

  “Today is the last day of school… isn’t it?”

  Jerome stopped scribbling in the composition book. “I’m sorry but it is not. That was three months ago.”

  “What have I been doing for all this time? The summer is almost… What has happened to me all this time?”

  Jerome took in a calming breath and looked out the rippled glass of the sun room. He placed the book on top of the white wicker table and began grasping at his face with his right hand. That is when I too looked out into the beautiful grounds. I saw the curvature of the grass that hugged the brook and the thick forest of trees beyond. I saw my brother out along the edge of the forested trees. He was the one that was crying out earlier and I could see why. His right hand had a spike impaled through it with two chains attached to both ends of the spike. Jerome sensed what I saw and quickly picked the book up again and began thumbing through the many pages of scribbled notes and stopped on a few passages and had begun reading aloud to me.

  “The young Pierce clearly has not accepted he has attained dimensional sublimation and is currently ambiguous of it. I have unsuccessfully tried several methods of reality based modalities of engagement as he sees fit not to understand what has truly happened to himself or of his being. His overactive limbic manifestations continue to transpire with lack of impulse control…”

  My focus turned from my brother back to Jerome. “I don’t understand.”

  “These are not my notes. It is not my opinion. It is Freeman’s. I have only been assigned to take over and help you out.”

  “I don’t need help mister.”

  “Oh but you do. That man behind the drapes continues to ravage you. He waits and smiles just as you said he does. You told me you saw his eyes and the permanent smile affixed to his face as he watched you behind the thin drapes. There is no mistaking what you have said to me before. In fact you have explained that all of the faces you see from day to day all look as he does at you.”

  I turned my focus on Jerome’s face to see if I could see what he was talking about but I couldn’t see that in his face. I couldn’t see him smiling at me; all I saw was this worried look on his face. It appeared he had been trying to help me in some way after all. I had begun to trust his intentions but I still didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “Can I read what wa
s written in the book?”

  Jerome hesitated by retracting the book towards his chest but eventually closed it and slid it over to me. I started to look through the many pages of small tightly scribbled notes, all of which was in different handwriting. All of the pages had one to two page notes written about different people. Life stories reduced to a few pieces of paper. There were too many to single out and concentrate on until I came upon one entry of what I had thought was about the little girl. I could only understand a few things about the notes that were written about her. I could only really understand that she had been abused savagely at the hands of her father. This instantly angered me as I started to breathe hard.

  “Maybe it’s best we do this at later time. All of this is clearly upsetting you.” Jerome said to me while pointing out my chained down brother.

  “I’m alright. My brother deserves to be tied down like a dog. Let him feel what it’s like to be helpless.”

  “Well the best thing to do is continue sipping away at your favorite tea. This always helps me to calm down.”

  Both of us started taking sips of the sweet and spicy tea once again and it was working to quell my anger. I turned my focus back outside. The sunlight was slowly fading the glow away and the colors of the magic hour were beginning to fill the sky. My brother just faded amongst all of those colors as well.

  The porch was beginning to darken and as I looked around at the sun room I finally noticed what was waving in the back ground of the room. The walls were covered ceiling to floor with thin see through black drapes. The kind of material a gypsy would use to cover their face. The drapes moved slightly like waves in an ocean from the slight current of air moving from a slow moving ceiling fan.

  “Just focus on me.” Jerome calmly spoke. “Listen to my instructions. Do not look past me into the veil; there is nothing there for you.”

  Jerome suddenly grabbed my face with both of his hands so that I could not move my head. He just stared at me with that same concerned look he had once before. He started to breath heavy. His eyes started to well up with tears.

  “Just keep looking at me and focus. O.K.”

  I did focus. I just looked nervously into his eyes but still kept focusing on Jerome. My eyes had started to blur and that’s when I saw what he was talking about earlier. I kept moving my vision in and out of focus; quickly blurring Jerome and focusing on the drapes. Back and forth my eyes quickly focused in and out and I saw the outline of a man’s smiling face in the drapes. I saw the whites of his eyes and teeth being obscured by the veil of drapes. It looked like a grinning mask floating behind the curtains.

  “Keep looking at me while I take you to your room.” I felt Jerome guide me along to somewhere. The light was almost all gone now and the darkness was fast creeping in.

  I couldn’t see where he had taken me but he had never once let my face go in his hands. I didn’t focus on the drapes anymore but of his face. His eyes had finally started to slowly river with tears down his face. A few of the droplets made their way to my face. I think I was lying down at this point because his tears started to fall from his eyes and pool on my face. I focused in and out real quickly and saw that face again; veiled and grinning.

  “Just keep looking at me…”

  Jerome moved his left hand up my face over to my right eye and used his fingers to open it wider for some reason. He stared intently at me as I felt a piece of ice enter the corner of my eye. I couldn’t see it but I could feel it slithering slowly making its way further curving behind my eye.

  “Bring your hands up to my face.” Jerome instructed.

  It was getting darker and darker the further the ice travelled. I could barely make out Jerome’s face in the darkness. I finally got my hands up to his face and began to focus hard. I could see right through my hands to the features of his face. They were like fog over his skin.

  His face slowly faded into darkness and that of his veiled smile.