Downpour

Anna Atkins on Unsplash

She spent the mornings buried beneath blankets while the endless downpour assaulted the roof and windows, soothing and grating, confining her to the mattress on the floor. When she finally rose it was with a throbbing headache, her mind screaming from the decay of ongoing oversleeping. Without conscious thought, she peeled a neon sticky note from the pad by her pillows and etched into it, the dried pen leaving half-inked scratches on the page, resembling the scarred skin over her hands.

The entire wall above the mattress was a mosaic of coloured squares, a giant mural she’d never expected—or hoped—it would become. She planted the newest sticky note next to the others, reading the word with what might have once been disdain.

Tuesday.

A routine perfected through monotonous repetition, she walked through the house to check for potential leaks, transferred water vapours collected overnight to the purifying tank, watered the vegetable patch beneath the glass ceiling at the rear of the house, all without thought, expression, emotion.

Throughout her suburban prison, hundreds of sticky notes adorned the walls at various heights, planted at various times, handwritten messages of varying urgency scribbled onto each page.

Acid/poison, only organic material

Nature? Government? Aliens?

“Stay inside.” “Wait it out.” Good one.

CHANGE FILTERS

Internet officially down. We’re all doomed.

I’m sick of potatoes

4 hrs 46 mins. BEAT THAT

Smoke signals?

GOD I NEED A DRINK

Once it had been a way to keep their minds busy. She’d had a surplus of the coloured squares lying around from her old job. As the squares filled the walls, dotting every surface of every room, it became ritual to keep their sanity.

She only ever wrote new ones now to track the days, though that too was losing its appeal. She needed no new reminders; her life had simmered down to mind-numbing routine.

Morning tasks complete, she stepped out the front door for her cheeks to meet the cool air, strangely dry despite the perpetual rain. Though less stale than inside, when she inhaled, the outside always left a slight sting in her nostrils.

She watched the world from the front porch, the ceaseless hammering of the small yard. The once tidy block of grass and colourful plants along its edges had been reduced to rough, unkempt dirt. Past a short fence lining the property was the road, unused for longer than she cared to reminisce. Trees had once lined the street, swaying in a cool summer breeze, shading the cars cruising through the suburbs filled with rumbling lawnmowers and children’s laughter and adults sharing juicy tales of their neighbours. All gone. Only dirt, rock, and stone remained whenever she watched the miserable grey world, lifeless and pockmarked.

Her eyes were drawn to the only discernible detail, immediately cursing herself for glancing at the small mound of slightly greyer dirt in the yard.

No one ever thought the end would be so calm.

She used to wonder how the ceaseless pattering could bring such devastation. On the precipice of death she stood, the porch a barrier between safety and destruction. The urge grew, a small part of her screaming to reach out, test if the rain still posed any threat, if it had lost its murderous ability after so long, or maybe to gauge if she could still feel something, anything beyond the numbing solidarity her life had spiralled into. It grew every time she watched the rain too long, a regular occurrence without much other stimulation, but she’d rub her hands, fingers running over the thick scar tissue formed on one palm and across the other knuckles, her reminder of the unbearable pain so immense it had seared into her memory, lasting weeks while the wounds had messily healed.

That had only been her hands; she couldn’t imagine being caught in the downpour, blanketing and burning her whole body, as it had so many in the early days.

She returned to her tomb, down the hall to stand at the bathroom door, having forgotten its presence for a few days, maybe longer. Sometimes the idea of the rope was her only solace. Tight knots, one end fastened to the foot of the bathtub, the other thrown over the curtain rail in a simple but effective pulley system. Without running water, the bathroom was pointless except to feel the collar around her neck, contemplate the ease with which she could escape her drained, isolated existence.

Not today.

Her eyes drifted to the various coloured squares plastered over and around the bathroom door. Though she’d read the notes left around the house hundreds of times, she’d never mustered the courage to take any down.

Running water down! Yay!

CLEAN BUCKETS

Condensation? Vapours?

I’m sorry…

Air SAFE

Don’t do it!

She hadn’t felt the rope for a while, and whenever she did, it was always all talk. The notes didn’t guide her anymore; she operated on the bare minimum of consciousness, somewhere between a lucid dreaming and fugue state.

Hours of moving between rooms with fragile purpose later, darkness engulfed the world outside through thick clouds. She sunk into the old mattress, no desire to light candles to read or write or delay the inevitable plunge into rest to bring about the next painfully identical day.

Any memory of dreams immediately faded when she woke.

Beyond the droning rain battering the roof and windows echoed a quiet, steady dripping, just loud enough to pierce the monotony. She sat in the darkness, the dead of rainy night, unacquainted with the unexpected.

The candle in her hand bathed the hallway in a warm glow, the house eerily alien in the darkness. She couldn’t recall when she’d last risen before morning.

The dripping led her to the rear of the house, a room she never entered, had forgotten or at least buried deep in her mind its past purpose. The door creaked open as she stepped in, the dripping louder.

A smooth dent in the floorboards had formed under a constant single stream, her heart racing with the beat of the drops. She followed the stream to the ceiling where the rain infiltrated through little more than a pinhole.

She dropped the candle, waking her from her shocked stupor.

There were no organic materials in the house’s steel and concrete exterior; the rain shouldn’t have been able to eat through.

Explanations unimportant, she raced to think of a solution. She brought her largest pot from the kitchen to catch the deadly stream, concentrating to avoid any contact. Temporarily dealt with, she dragged the room’s old desk, suppressing the associated buried memories, over to the leak. Standing on top, limbs aching from the sudden exercise, she held the candle up to the hole. Was it pooling in the ceiling, only now having eaten through the chalk? Would it gradually fill the room, spread through the rest of the house?

The possibilities were overwhelming. Rather than panic—if she remembered how—she needed to investigate further.

She reached the nearby manhole, a portal she’d never had any interest in entering, from the desk and swung down the trapdoor. With a nearby box on the corner of the platform, she stretched up to peer into the darkness, bringing the candle up to illuminate the crawlspace.

The water trailed through an equally small hole in the metal above, not yet pooling on the ceiling. That didn’t answer how the rain had burned through the roof. Praying this was the only occurrence, she searched as far as the candlelight would allow for any further leaks.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen something she didn’t immediately recognise, something that stood out among the static objects around the house that had become invisible. Not since before she’d been abandoned.

A tiny pill bottle behind the edge of the manhole glowed in the candlelight.

She lost all urgency for the leak as she took the bottle and came to the floor, staring at it in her free hand. It was filled with crumpled balls of coloured paper.

The deadly stream filled the pot beside her until wax dripped to her fingers, jolting her from trance. With trembling hands she opened the bottle to empty the scrunched up sticky notes and relight the candle. Any thought for the leak or roof or manhole dispersed, only the papers she’d somehow never seen, hidden for so long it made her heart race as she unfolded them, flattening them against the desk.

She guessed after unfolding the first, but by the fifth was certain she hadn’t written and hidden them herself, forgotten through the months of monotony. Scrawled upon the coloured squares was unmistakably his thin, messy handwriting.

This is how I did it. I hid it from you because…

Tears blurred her vision as she read his final words, whether intentional or not, each note ending abruptly while he attempted another.

I hid the pills because I didn’t want you to know I had the option. I couldn’t…

I would’ve shared them if you ever thought it was an option. You didn’t. That’s not…

You were always so stubborn. That’s why I love you. You…

You were always much stronger than me. That’s why I love you.

Her face grew numb with despair, tears flowing for the answers she’d hated him for never giving when he’d left without a hint if it had even been intentional or not. Now she knew, though vague and erratic, what he’d been thinking, how he’d spent their final night together.

Weeping, gasping for air to sooth the immense weight crushing her chest, she glanced between notes before returning to the pill bottle. Another note clung to the bottom, neatly folded, purposefully placed. She scraped it out and studied the fine handwriting squished onto the tiny page.

All the emotion she’d suppressed in the months of abandonment, everything she’d buried to survive suddenly resurfaced. She curled up on the floorboards and wept, screamed, wailed for him, to him, at him, hating him, loving and missing him, wishing he was dead all over again, wishing with all she was he’d never left.

Her eyes were dry, throat raw, utterly exhausted, when dim sunlight peaked through the window. She couldn’t bear to read the note again, though still clutched it to her chest.

She moved to the bedroom, ignoring the gathering pool flowing from the pot behind her, and buried herself in the sheets, the only sliver of relief she’d find from the pain even worse than the rain burning and melting through her hands when she, in a fit of desperate irrational rage, had thrown his body from the porch.

The hours brought no salvation, no answer to how she could bury and forget his confession, the words tattooed to her eyelids only growing stronger.

She crawled to stand on her weak, swaying legs, overwhelmed and drained with the note still in hand. She stumbled down the hallway to the bathroom door, watching it for a long time, waiting for it to call out, warn or invite her, anything. The notes plastered around the door tried, but their cautions, opinions, and reasons were familiar, futile. Nothing had changed. It never would.

Gasping through dry tears, she opened the door and placed the final note on the wall in front of the tub before climbing in.

The familiar scratching was cold as she tightened the collar. She reread his final words, her final words, over and over before and after stepping off the edge of the tub.

Maybe sometimes it’s okay to admit weakness. Maybe sometimes you have to. I’m so sorry. I have to. If you ever do too, just know that I always have and always will love you.

Luke Southern on Unsplash