Invest in Rain - Part 1

The light at the end of the hallway had been out before classes had even begun and, as if it were succumbing to the dark hall’s end, the bulb adjacent began to flicker in a cold, sickly polyrhythm, but only when it rained. The familiar scrape of thin metal against the concrete thundered clumsily like a brass horn breaking a note as someone opened the door at the bottom stairwell. A gust of humid asphalt and burnt rubber mist took the instant to resuscitate the stagnant air. For a moment the lonely hall of numbered doors fluttered like the feathers of a bathing bird. The swirling invisible fist of street atmosphere broke the dead hum of incandescent lights with its shouts, motors, horns and the buzzing white blanket drone of rain. With no one pushing it closed, the vault-like front door dragged its sheared, metal foot back into its place and all was settled into the grayish flickering light.

Squeaks from the stairwell broke up the hallway hum in a clumsy dancing frenzy, sounding much like the mating or dueling of the more chipper pint-sized mammals. The footfall of two pairs of rubber boots emerged from the dance and then a young man spoke out “I think I get it enough. I’d say I understand the argument,” He was supporting a large backpack. A young woman with long, wet hair trailed slightly behind as they clopped their way up the dirt-watered stairway where both hand rails had been inexplicably detached and set upright against a wall only a few days prior. “All he’s saying is that these are my arms and with these I interact with the physical world. Therefore, there is a physical world.” Their black coats were ornamented with beaded rainwater that speckled the cleaner parts of the chipped, once-green tile beneath them. “Yeah, but it’s not enough to just say here’s the world, just open your eyes and look at your hands.” The young man took his steps a bit slower as he noticed how slick the stairs had become. The young woman was palming the wall with both hands. He put his hand on her lower back as she stepped up the last few stairs.

“The guy’s too certain.” The young man stepped towards the wall to avoid the bulk of the dirty tracks left by his neighbors. “He thinks simpler is better. Like that’s just going to solve it. Just some good ol’ fashion common sense from an Englishman and boom! We’re supposed to be convinced that centuries of argument and observation are, all-of-a-sudden, obsolete. It’s smug. It’s an argument that is not even remotely respectful to the other guy. Doesn’t it seem a bit arrogant?”

The young woman shrugged dismissively. “Did you know the first definition of psychology was ‘the study of the soul?’”

“No.” The young man searched for his keys while he traced the lines of footprints to all their separate front doors. Every door had two prints pointing forward. “Are we the only couple here?”

“Look,” He pointed down to his left. “One set.” He pointed to another. “One set.”

“If it wasn’t for the rain I wouldn’t think we had any neighbors.” The young woman smiled, revealing two dimples just above the tall collar of her coat. “We really should buy an umbrella.”

“Can’t afford it.” The young man opened the door as he dropped his backpack from his shoulder. “Let me help!” The young woman reached up to put her hands over the young man’s eyes, wedging the backpack between them so that the young man’s arms were stuck. “No lights! No lights! Let’s live in darkness forever!” She giggled in song and put her cold hands up the young man’s shirt.

“Ah, you little shit!”

The two stumbled into the doorway still attached. Dropping the backpack the young man turned and lifted the young woman up to him. He kissed into her dry neck, the only thing that didn’t taste like rain. Her eyes closed, her fingers stopped tickling and she touched the flat of her palms over his neck.

The pair kissed recklessly in the shadowed doorway until the young woman felt the broken lights buzzing in her ear. She pushed the door shut and, as if falling into black water, the two clung tighter to one another as they held their breath.

In the darkness they found the chair they’d placed next to the coat rack. The young man pulled the young woman to his lap and palmed her cheek to gently pull her head back. “What’s wrong?” She whispered. “Don’t turn the lights on just yet.” He said. The young woman felt the tips of his fingers moving over her jaw and ears and then she felt her cold, wet hair being wrapped over her cheeks and chin. She started to fidget with joy as he ran a straight cord of hair over the top of her lip. With masseuse-like care he matted her hair gently so that all strands were perfectly in place. Finally he ran his hands over her neck to hold its shape. “There.”

The young woman turned on the lights to reveal her brand new finely sculpted full-beard. The young man nodded in approval. “You look like that financial aid dick who had to approve our housing status.”

“Eww!” She wiped the beard into orderly strands behind her shoulders. “I told you to shut up about that.”

“Someone had a sex dream.” He teased.

“Shut-up!”

The young woman crashed her head into his shoulder and the young man pulled her close. “You know I don’t care.” He said, only partially concerned.

“It was just so weird and I think he’s gross and I hated how he talked down to us, even though we had already been tenants and he had egg in his beard that one time. It still makes me gag sometimes! Little yellow fleshy flecks and bits. It’s gross and I don’t—“ She pulled her head back and started straightening the top of his hair. “I don’t think I ever even told you the weird part.”

“What was the weird part?”

“We didn’t have anything.”

The young man looked confused.

“Our crotches were blank.”

“Oh.”

“We had no genitals, no hair and I couldn’t feel anything. It was like a padded rubbing, a numb kind of—“ She rubbed her smooth palms together in the same motion one would use a pancake to dry off another pancake.

“You looked down and there was nothing?”

“Yeah, but I only looked for a second because I thought I would fall between them.”

“Them?”

“The blank crotches.”

“Like into the crotches?”

“It looked like I was going to fall in between them, like into a crevasse. That’s what it felt like, like I was standing at the edge of my own empty crotch that was suddenly three hundred feet deep with another crotch in front of it and no feet below it. There could’ve been wind.”

“Did you fall?”

“Yeah, but I woke up.”

“So you did fall into them?”

“I don’t really know. It’s all dream fuzz.”

“Weird.” The young man looked tickled and a bit disturbed.

“Let’s stop talking about it.” The young woman buried her head in his open jacket.

“I wish our landlords were still that old couple and not the University.”

“At least they got out.” Her voice muffled into the jacket and made his armpit vibrate.

“You hungry?” She rubbed her chin into his sternum.

“Not really.” He touched the tip of her nose like he was setting an alarm.

Like at the end of a rehearsal, the two let go of each other, took off their wet jackets and put them on the hooks near the door. The young man dragged the backpack on the floor into the living-roomish area of the studio apartment and set it on the countertop that separated the kitchen area from everywhere else. The light switch in the kitchen also turned on the space heater at the end of the counter. He took out the books with wet edges so they could bask in front of the old clicking gadget. Then he flipped the dripping backpack over a chair and pulled it close so that the red filament lit up the faded silver logo of the backpack. He kicked off his wet shoes and opened the fridge as the young woman, having shed all her wet clothes directly into the kitchen sink, walked across the carpet in her black underwear and black socks towards the bathroom...