It rained darkly outside the small shop, pouring across the pavement, thundering over the rims of rusted gutters that creaked in complaint, spilling down upon the ashen sidewalk. From this obscurity, the woman entered. A bell chimed distantly as the door moved behind her, closing off the store from a vast shifting expanse of grey rain. The small ledge by the plate-glass window displayed ancient books to the empty street, thick tomes bound in leather.
She closed her umbrella and leaned it by the door. The indistinct strains of an old song faintly wound their way to the front of the shop. Lifting her head, she scanned the room with dark eyes. The walls were lined with dusty shelves. In the narrow space between them, two heavy bookcases leaned back to back. Within the dark wood's shadowed confines, worn bindings stood like weary soldiers. One, taller than its brothers, tilted away from the others on its shelf. She walked towards it, bent to pull it from its place. The volumes that had been beside it fell to fill the space where it had stood. They scarcely made a sound as they tipped, but flecks of dust faintly rose from the covers.
Her fingertips brushed the leather binding. In the dim light, she could not read the words that had been there; the gilding had nearly worn away. She parted the covers. Upon the fly-leaf, a date was written in faint brown ink, along with a name. The lines were thin as spiders' traces, the writing illegible. The paper, brittle with age, crackled slightly as she turned the page. Letters stood upright in rows, words in sequence upon the yellowed leaf. Beyond that, she could not understand. The book was written in a foreign tongue. What was it saying? She stared past the bleak page as if gazing through it.
The music ended. Sensing its absence, the woman looked to the back of the store. A young man reclined behind an antique desk, feet resting on the desktop as he read. She rose to her feet, carefully closing the book and keeping it in her hand.. He noticed her movement and looked up. His eyes were grey.
"Hello." He spoke softly, but his voice seemed loud against the background of almost-silence.
"Hello." She looked down at the book she held, turning the pages. A word, here and there, seemed almost familiar, but together they made no sense. There was a pause.
"Can I help you with anything?" The shop held no sound other than the constant rain and their voices.
"No, thank you. I'm just looking."
"Have you been here before?" It was the typical shopkeeper's question, stranger to stranger.
"No, I'm not from around here. I haven't come up here before. I'm leaving today." She turned and looked back out into the rain. Shapes formed and faded like dreams in the falling water. He laid down his book, swung his feet from the desk, sat upright.
"Did you come here on business, then? Or to visit? There isn't much to see here."
"Not to visit. Not business, either. Just. . .drifting through. Traveling."
"To anywhere in particular?" His eyes sought and captured hers.
She paused for a moment, glancing back around the room, away from his eyes, as if considering the risk. "Yes. I just don't know where yet." She smiled a small ironic smile to herself.
He leaned forward and propped his head on the heels of his hands, ignoring a vagrant strand of long light hair that drifted into his eyes. "I wish I could do the same. . .just leave and search. Or. . ." He looked beyond her, unfocused.
"Or?" Now it was her gaze that was piercing, calling him back.
"Or just leave."
"Why?"
"I don't know. It rains too much here."
"What is wrong with the rain?"
"Nothing. It makes things grow, right? But if it's always raining, it isn't doing anyone any good. Nothing can grow, and nothing can change. It just gets beaten down by the rain. And then there's nothing to see on a rainy day. Everything is trapped in grey oblivion. I pass people, but their faces just go by. A flash, and then they disappear. It's worse when they're people I know. I just see them hurry by, and they don't even stop to look. I feel like I don't make a difference. I don't, either. I don't cause a ripple in their lives. It doesn't really matter if I'm there or not."
"I know what you mean. It rains everywhere else, though."
"Not all the time. Not like here."
"You can't escape it."
"I'd rather be in the rain somewhere else, then. With strangers, or alone. Not here, not in this small town. I don't want to see faces I know in the rain. It reminds me of the ants I drowned as a child. There was a small stream of water along the street. I lured ants onto a stick and put them into it. I blocked their way out and pushed them back in when they almost escaped. They walked up against the current for a while, and then they just crumpled up. In pain, I guess. And then they were washed away. Nothing left. There was no reason to kill them, but it didn't make a difference in the long run, I guess. There are so many ants-what will one less matter?"
She shook her head. "It wouldn't help you to leave. It's always raining somewhere."
"I'll find somewhere where it doesn't. I have to." There was a pause. "You're trying to escape the rain too, then."
"Yes."
"How? You're just drifting. You don't know where you're going."
"Neither do you. It doesn't matter, really. Nobody does."
Silent, they both listened to the rain. It held wailing and sighs and shrieks and pleadings. It poured down harder. The voices faded almost into hysterical laughter as lightning flashed, and then they were drowned out by a peal of thunder. A gust of wind, and then the voices began to call out once more, as they always will.
"What is there, then? If I can't escape?"
She opened her eyes. "The rain. And the strangers."
"That's all?"
"That's all." The rain rushed in her ears. "But you can watch the faces."
"What good does that do?"
"I don't know. It helps. Maybe some of them know where it doesn't rain. One time I saw an old woman out on the street in the middle of a storm. It was cold, and she was soaked. She had a red umbrella, but she just held it at her side. I don't know why. When I passed her, she handed it to me. I didn't know what to say. She must have been crazy. I must've been, too, because I gave her a pen I had in my pocket. It made sense at the moment. I didn't say a word, I just kept on walking. I turned back to look after a while. She was looking at me, and she just sort of smiled. I don't understand it. Maybe she knew the rain was going to stop, or maybe she just stopped caring. It was a part of her, somehow, the umbrella. I can remember her face, all wet with rain. And it helps to remember. Do I make sense?" She looked him in the eye.
"Almost."
"That's the way it always is. Nobody really knows what I'm trying to say or what I'm really looking for. A way to escape the rain, sure, and someone who understands, and a way to fit all the pieces together. It's more than that, though, but I don't know what. I just wish I could know what's going on here, and why it's happening in the first place. Sometimes I think I'm mad. Mad is a good word, isn't it? Insane would be too much, really, and crazy's lost its meaning. Mad is just about right. Am I mad? I know I look at things differently. Nobody asks the questions I ask. I'm sorry." Her weary eyes again met his.
"For what?"
"For rambling. I can't help it. I talk to all the strangers. I don't know quite why. If they listen, I go on and on. Maybe someday I'll find one that'll understand what I'm saying. That's part of why I do it. I listen to them, too, and sometimes they give me a piece of the puzzle. Somehow, I think I understand things more from what they tell me. I can't quite explain it."
"I understand that."
"Do you?"
"I do. I know exactly what you mean. I know how bizarre I must look to the rest of the world, walking through the rain and looking at their faces. I can't help it, though. There are some things I just need to say. Even if nobody is listening. I know it doesn't make a difference. Maybe, one day, it will. Who knows?" His eyes, grey, held no answer.
"Yes. I think you understand."
"I think I do." For a moment, they seemed to look beyond or through each other's eyes. Distantly, she shifted the old book from one hand to the other, sliding her finger between the brittle pages.
"What book is that?" he asked.
"I don't know. It was in the bookcase."
"I haven't seen it before."
"You should know what's here. You work here."
"Why does it matter if I keep track?"
"If someone comes and steals something, how would you know?"
"Would it matter?"
"It would. How can you know it isn't something you'd miss if you don't know what's here?"
"How could I miss it if I didn't know about it?"
"You'll know about it once you need it. What if you need it someday, and you look for it, and you can't find it? You should look around more often. You need to know what's here. I mean, it doesn't rain inside."
"I know. But I can still hear the rain."
"You always can. You can't escape it. You can't stay in here, either. Still, you need to know what's inside, in case other people come in. Nobody can afford to just lose something. It's different to give things away, but you can't just let them disappear. All these books are pieces of the puzzle, like the faces and the voices and the rain. I don't know how they connect, but you need all the pieces. Don't let anyone take any of them." She opened the book and paged through it again. "I think I'd like to have this." She pulled several crumpled bills from her pocket and laid them on the desk before him, along with the book. He opened it up.
"Can you understand what's written here?"
"Almost."
"What language is this?" "I don't know."
"How do you know what it's saying, then?"
"It's saying what all these books are saying. It's about something worth remembering or knowing or imagining. Someone thought it mattered. I understand that. Does it make a difference what it is?" "I think it does. I mean, someone doesn't want to be forgotten, so he wrote a book. He wants to be known, to be remembered, as who he was, right? He wants to say something. It's like the faces. You want to remember what they look like, and to try to understand them, even though you don't know where they fit."
"I think I see. Maybe I'll find somebody who can tell me what this says."
"I hope you will," he said. He turned to the inside of the front cover. "There's no price here. There's usually a price penciled in."
"That's ten dollars, there on the desk."
"That's okay. Just take it."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. I want you to. A gift."
"All right, then." She took the money and the book from the desk. Another pause. She placed the money back in her pocket and tucked the book under her coat.
He looked at her. "What is your name?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Yes, it does."
She opened the book and tore out the fly-leaf with its inscription. "Here."
"This isn't your name."
"It's enough."
"I can't understand what it says."
"I know." The distant beat of rain sounded outside the shop. "You want to remember. That's enough to remember me by." She pulled her coat around her more tightly. "I have to leave. I need to catch a bus."
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know yet."
"I guess it doesn't make a difference."
"It might."
"Well, it was nice meeting you."
"You too."
"It's odd how we say that. I haven't really met you, most people would say. You'll never even know my name."
"I know. But you know who I am."
"Do I?"
"You know what I'm saying. You understand what I mean about the rain."
"I do. But it's all a piece of the puzzle. I haven't fitted them all together yet. You're part of it."
"Come back again if you ever figure out where I fit."
"I will. I mean it. I really will." She said this over her shoulder as she walked toward the door. He stood and turned to look at the bookshelf behind the desk. He followed its length, tracing the bindings with his fingertips, brushing the dust away from the faded titles.
The bell rang indistinctly as she exited into the rain. It ran through the streets in mumbling torrents. She walked into it, against it, along the center of the street, until she could no longer see the store behind her. She held the book underneath her coat, close to her, to protect the red leather binding. The grey rain washed over her face, caressing her. She was alone in its embrace. All she could see, in every direction, were shifting silver shapes. Were they words, or were they faces?
"I left my umbrella in the shop," she said to the rain, smiling a bit to herself. "He'll find it eventually. I don't really need it." And she walked off, watching the figures formed by a throng of falling droplets, trying to see how each added to the whole in the brief moment before it hit the ground and was lost, lost in the wild stream that ran along the road to an unknown destination.
Copyright (c) 1996 by Cara-Beth L. (carasoyne@aol.com). All rights reserved